Microbial Platform for Terpenoid Production: Escherichia coli and Yeast

Abstract

Terpenoids, also called isoprenoids, are a large and highly diverse family of natural products with important medical and industrial properties. However, a limited production of terpenoids from natural resources constrains their use of either bulk commodity products or high valuable products. Microbial production of terpenoids from <i>Escherichia coli</i> and yeasts provides a promising alternative owing to available genetic tools in pathway engineering and genome editing, and a comprehensive understanding of their metabolisms. This review summarizes recent progresses in engineering of industrial model strains, <i>E. coli</i> and yeasts, for terpenoids production. With advances of synthetic biology and systems biology, both strains are expected to present the great potential as a platform of terpenoid synthesis.