Lycopene, as a high value-added terpene compound, has been widely concerned by researchers at home and abroad. Firstly, the ability of lycopene synthesis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae model strains S288c and YPH499 was analyzed and compared. The results showed that YPH499 was more suitable for lycopene synthesis as yeast chassis. Subsequently, the effects of constitutive promoters GPDpr, TEF1pr and inducible promoters GAL1pr, GAL10pr on Lycopene synthesis were compared. The results showed that when GPDpr and TEF1pr were used as promoters of crtE, crtB and crtI in lycopene synthesis pathway, the production of lycopene was 15.31 mg/L after 60 h fermentation in shaking flask. When GAL1pr and GAL10pr were used as promoters, the production was 123.89 mg/L, which was 8.09 times higher. In addition, the methylvaleric acid (MVA) pathway was further modified to overexpress the key enzyme gene of N-terminal truncation, tHMG1 (3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase). The lycopene production was 265.68 mg/L, and the yield per cell was 72.79 mg/g. The Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain designed and constructed in this study can express lycopene in high yield per cell, thus could be used in the industrial production of lycopene after further construction and optimization.
Biosynthetic Pathways ; genetics ; Fermentation ; Industrial Microbiology ; Lycopene ; metabolism ; Saccharomyces cerevisiae ; genetics ; metabolism ; Species Specificity

Blakeslea trispora is a natural source of carotenoids, including β-carotene and lycopene, which have industrial applications. Therefore, classical selective breeding techniques have been applied to generate strains with increased productivity, and microencapsulated β-carotene preparation has been used in food industry (Li et al., 2019). In B. trispora, lycopene is synthesized via the mevalonate pathway (Venkateshwaran et al., 2015). Lycopene cyclase, which is one of the key enzymes in this pathway, is a bifunctional enzyme that can catalyze the cyclization of lycopene to produce β-carotene and exhibit phytoene synthase activity (He et al., 2017).
Citric Acid Cycle ; Fermentation ; Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry/methods* ; Lycopene/metabolism* ; Mucorales/metabolism* ; Nicotine/pharmacology* ; beta Carotene/biosynthesis*

Lycopene is an antioxidant which has potential anti-diabetic activity, but the cellular mechanisms have not been clarified. In this study, different concentrations of lycopene were used to treat pancreatic alpha and beta cell lines, and the changes of cell growth, cell apoptosis, cell cycle, reactive oxygen species (ROS), ATP levels and expression of related cytokines were determined. The results exhibited that lycopene did not affect cell growth, cell apoptosis, cell cycle, ROS and ATP levels of alpha cells, while it promoted the growth of beta cells, increased the ratio of S phase, reduced the ROS levels and increased the ATP levels of beta cells. At the same time, lycopene treatment elevated the mRNA expression levels of tnfα, tgfβ and hif1α in beta cells. These findings suggest that lycopene plays cell-specific role and activates pancreatic beta cells, supporting its application in diabetes therapy.
Adenosine Triphosphate ; metabolism ; Apoptosis ; Carotenoids ; pharmacology ; Cell Cycle ; Cells, Cultured ; Cytokines ; metabolism ; Glucagon-Secreting Cells ; drug effects ; Humans ; Insulin-Secreting Cells ; drug effects ; Lycopene ; pharmacology ; Reactive Oxygen Species ; metabolism