Bioconversion of methanol to 3-hydroxypropionate by engineering Ogataea polymorpha

Methanol bioconversion toward chemical production can be helpful for carbon neutrality. Here metabolic engineering an industrial methylotrophic yeast Ogataea polymorpha was conducted for overproduction of 3-hydroxypropionate (3-HP), an important platform chemical, which can be used for production of special chemicals including acrylamide, acrylic acid, 1,3-propanediol, as well as biodegradable plastics. We developed several metabolic engineering strategies to optimize the 3-HP biosynthetic pathway and enhance the supply of precursors acetyl-CoA and malonyl-CoA, and cofactor NADPH, which enabled the 3-HP production of 1.45 g/L under batch fermentation and 7.10 g/L under fed-batch fermentation at shake flask scale, with a yield of 0.14 g/g methanol. This was, to our knowledge, the highest 3-HP titer from methanol and even one-carbon sources. This study demonstrated the potential of O. polymorpha as a cell factory for chemical production from methanol.