Premium
Hydrocortisone made in yeast: Metabolic engineering turns a unicellular microorganism into a drug‐synthesizing factory
Author(s) -
Dumas Bruno,
BrocardMasson Corinne,
AssematLebrun Karine,
Achstetter Tilman
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
biotechnology journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.144
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1860-7314
pISSN - 1860-6768
DOI - 10.1002/biot.200500046
Subject(s) - yeast , eukaryote , organism , saccharomyces cerevisiae , biology , microorganism , model organism , bacteria , computational biology , genome , microbiology and biotechnology , biochemistry , gene , genetics
Abstract Inspired by the successful work of converting Saccharomyces cerevisiae into an microorganism capable of synthesizing hydrocortisone, a 27‐carbon molecule, from ethanol, a 2‐carbon molecule, this review provides an overview of the potential of yeast as a recombinant organism in the 21st century. Yeast has been used by man for more than 6000 years, and is still paving the way to new discoveries. It was the first eukaryotic organism to be sequenced, in 1996, and the first to produce hydrocortisone in 2003. In addition, extensive genome–wide analyses have been performed with yeast. In this review, we discuss the pros and cons of using yeast to produce small therapeutic molecules. It is obvious that S. cerevisiae has a cutting edge advantage of being a well–known organism and time will tell if yeast “biohydrocortisone” is a unique example or the beginning of a long list of yeast bioproducts. Other organisms, such as plants and bacteria, are competing with yeast. Bacteria produce a wealth of marketed molecules and plants are capable of producing extremely complex molecules with an unbeatable yield. However, S. cerevisiae offers a unique mix of the simplicity of a recombinant organism combined with the complexity of a eukaryote.