Improved production of epi-cedrol and santalene by fusion protein expression: Stability study and cyclization mechanism of epi-cedrol biosynthesis

Abstract

A wide range of secondary metabolites are produced by living organisms such as plants, bacteria and fungi as a part of their defense system against herbivores, pests and pathogens etc. Isoprenoids often called as terpenoids, are the most abundant and highly diverse family of natural organic compounds. In Plants, they plays a diverse part in photosynthetic pigments, hormones, electron carrier, structural components of membrane, as well as an important role in communication and defense. Many isoprenoids have useful applications in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and chemical industries. Isoprenoids synthesized in living organisms by Methyl D-Erythritol 4- Phosphate (MEP) pathway and Mevalonate (MVA) pathway. The recent advancement in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology techniques have enabled the engineering of these important isoprenoid biosynthetic pathways in the heterologous host systems like Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Both engineered systems are induced for large scale production of value added isoprenoids. In this chapter, the engineering in MEP pathway and MVA pathway for synthesizing isoprene units (C5) and its poly-isoprene chains for terpenoid productions have been summarized. This introduction chapter particularly highlighted the efforts taken for the production of hemiterpenoids (C5), monoterpenoids (C10), and sesquiterpenoids (C15) by various metabolic engineering techniques in host E. coli and S. cerevisiae over a decade.