Fatty alcohols production by oleaginous yeast

We have engineered Rhodosporidium toruloides to produce fatty alcohols by expressing a fatty acyl-CoA reductase from Marinobacter aquaeolei VT8. Production of fatty alcohols in flasks was achieved in different fermentation media at titers ranging from 0.2 to 2 g/L. In many of the conditions tested, more than 80 % of fatty alcohols were secreted into the cultivation broth. Through fed-batch fermentation in 7 L bioreactors, over 8 g/L of C(16)–C(18) fatty alcohols were produced using sucrose as the substrate. This is the highest titer ever reported on microbial production of fatty alcohols to date. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10295-015-1674-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.