Advances in metabolic engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for terpenoids biosynthesis

Terpenoids are a group of structurally diverse compounds with good biological activities and versatile functions such as anti-cancer and immunity-enhancing effects, and are widely used in food, healthcare and medical industries. Facilitated by the increasing understandings on the natural biosynthetic pathways of terpenoids in recent years, Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been engineered into high-yield strains for production of a variety of terpenoids, some of which have reached or become close to the level required by industrial production. In this connection, synthetic biology driven biotechnological production of terpenoids has become a promising alternative to chemical synthesis and traditional extraction approaches. This article summarizes the recent process in engineering S. cerevisiae for terpenoids biosynthesis, highlighting the effect of synthetic biology strategies by taking a couple of typical terpenoids as examples.