Metabolic engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for chelerythrine biosynthesis

Chelerythrine is an important alkaloid used in agriculture and medicine. However, its structural complexity and low abundance in nature hampers either bulk chemical synthesis or extraction from plants. Here, we reconstructed and optimized the complete biosynthesis pathway for chelerythrine from (S)-reticuline in Saccharomyces cerevisiae using genetic reprogramming.