Non-Conventional Yeast Species for Recombinant Protein and Metabolite Production

Humans have been using microorganisms for our benefit for millennia, initially by harvesting microbial metabolites and more recently by using microbes to produce recombinant proteins. The continual improvements of technologies for researching and editing genes and genomes has seen vast advances in the fields of recombinant protein production and metabolic engineering. Recombinant proteins have an abundant applications, including chemical catalysis and pharmaceutical uses, while metabolic engineering can allow improved yields of recombinant proteins and metabolites, or the introduction of new synthetic routes for metabolites. Yeasts are unicellular eukaryotes, and therefore are promising organisms for protein and metabolite production as they offer a favourable middle ground between simpler prokaryotes and more complex eukaryotes. Furthermore, many species are generally regarded as safe to use even in applications for food and pharmaceutical industries. This module presents some of the most commonly used tools and approaches for manipulating yeast species toward the production of proteins and metabolites of interest, aiming to provide up-to-date information along with some historical context. Research on two of the most generally applied species are described in more detail, before notable other species showing promising characteristics are briefly described. Finally, yeast elements common between species, that can be used as tools for the exploration or further development of lesser-studied species, are also mentioned.