[Construction of Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell factories for fermentation production of retinol].

Retinol is one of the main active forms of vitamin A, crucial for the organism's growth, development, and maintenance of eye and skin functions. It is widely used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and feed additives. Although animals lack a complete pathway for synthesizing vitamin A internally, they can obtain vitamin A directly through diet or convert β-carotene acquired from the diet.

[Construction of cell factories for production of patchoulol in Saccharomyces cerevisiae].

Patchoulol is an important sesquiterpenoid in the volatile oil of Pogostemon cablin, and is also considered to be the main contributing component to the pharmacological efficacy and fragrance of P. cablin oil, which has antibacterial, antitumor, antioxidant, and other biological activities. Currently, patchoulol and its essential oil blends are in high demand worldwide, but the traditional plant extraction method has many problems such as wasting land and polluting the environment.

[Heterologous biomimetic synthesis of active ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine:a new mode for protection and development of traditional Chinese medicine resources].

Heterologous biomimetic synthesis of the active ingredients of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) is a new mode of resource acquisition and has shown great potential in the protection and development of TCM resources. According to synthetic biology and by constructing biomimetic microbial cells and imitating the synthesis of active ingredients in medicinal plants and animals, the key enzymes obtained from medicinal plants and animals are scientifically designed and systematically reconstructed and optimized to realize the heterologous synthesis of the active ingredients in microorganisms. This method ensures an efficient and green acquisition of target products, and also achieves large-scale industrial production, which is conducive to the production of scarce TCM resources.

[Dynamic control of ERG20 expression to improve production of monoterpenes by engineering Saccharomyces cerevisiae].

Monoterpenes are widely used in cosmetics, food, medicine, agriculture and other fields. With the development of synthetic biology, it is considered as a potential way to create microbial cell factories to produce monoterpenes. Engineering Saccharomyces cerevisiae to produce monoterpenes has been a research hotspot in synthetic biology.

[Construction of cell factories for high production of ginsenoside Rh_2 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae].

Ginsenoside Rh_2 is a rare active ingredient in precious Chinese medicinal materials such as Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma, Notoginseng Radix et Rhizoma, and Panacis Quinquefolii Radix. It has important pharmacological activities such as anti-cancer and improving human immunity. However, due to the extremely low content of ginsenoside Rh_2 in the source plants, the traditional way of obtaining it has limitations.

Engineering CrtW and CrtZ for improving biosynthesis of astaxanthin in Escherichia coli.

This study engineered β-carotene ketolase CrtW and β-carotene hydroxylase CrtZ to improve biosynthesis of astaxanthin in Escherichia coli. Firstly, crtW was randomly mutated to increase CrtW activities on conversion from β-carotene to astaxanthin. A crtW* mutant with A6T, T105A and L239M mutations has improved 5.

[Biosynthesis analysis of hederagenin pathway and its construction in yeast cells].

Hederagenin is an effective constituent of many medical plants, such as Clematidis Radix, and has a wide range of applications in anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, antidepressant, hepatoprotective antibacterial, et al. In order to obtain the efficient production of yeast cells for hederagenin,we successfully cloned and screened out a P450 gene MdMA02 from Malus×domestica which can catalyze oleanolic acid C-23 oxidation with our developed plug and play platform. Its amino acid homology is only 32% as compared to characterized CYP72A68v2.

[Study of heterologous efficient synthesis of cucurbitadienol].

Cucurbitadienol has anti-inflammation, anti-cancer activities, and acts as a precursor of traditional Chinese medicine active ingredients mogroside and cucurbitacine. For construction of a Sacchromyces cerevisiae cell factory for production of cucurbitadienol, we firstly cloned a cucurbitadienol synthase (CBS) gene from Siraitia grosvenorii. Then, through heterologous expression of CBS in the triterpenoid chassis strain WD-2091, the engineered strain could produced 27.

Cloning and functional analysis of two sterol-C24-methyltransferase 1 (SMT1) genes from Paris polyphylla.

The biosynthetic pathways of phytosterols and steroidal saponins are located in two adjacent branches which share cycloartenol as substrate. The rate-limiting enzyme S-adenosyl-L-methionine-sterol-C24-methyltransferase 1 (SMT1) facilitates the metabolic flux toward phytosterols. It catalyzes the methylation of the cycloartenol in the side chain of the C24-alkyl group, to generate 24(28)-methylene cycloartenol.

[Construction of cell factories for production of lupeol in Saccharomyces cerevisiae].

Lupane-type triterpenoids, such as betulinic acid, are derived from lupeol and have excellent properties in anti-HIV, anti-cancer activities and so on. For realizing heterogenous production of lupane-type triterpenoids, our research firstly integrated all the seven genes in the MVA pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae to increase the supply of squalene (triterpenoids universal precursor) in a single step using the DNA assembler method. Next, cell factories for production of lupeol was constructed by integrating Arabidopsis thaliana lupeol synthetic gene (AtLUP) into chromosome of triterpenoid chassis strain.

Research progress of synthetic biology for tanshinones.

Synthetic biology research methods which design and build a new artificial biological systems (medicinal plants or microorganisms system) with specific physiological functions through clarifying and simulating the basic law of the biosynthesis of active components of traditional Chinese medicine, is considered to be a potential method to produce an abundant resources of bioactive components. Tanshinones is a kind of diterpene quinone compounds with important pharmacological activities from traditional Chinese medicine Salvia miltiorrhiza. This article systematically introduced the research progress of the synthetic biology of S.

[Status and future of natural resource for Chinese materia medica].

For thousands of years, the natural resource for Chinese materiamedica has been the foundation of the traditional Chinese medicine industry, which provides abundant medicine for human. In recent years, increasing demands and irrational exploitation led to a lot of problems such as rapid decrease of traditional Chinese herbs reserves, low quality of medicine and dismishing traditional cultures. These restricted the development of the traditional Chinese medicine.

[Construction of Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell factories for lycopene production].

For microbial production of lycopene, the lycopene synthetic genes from Pantoea agglomerans were integrated into Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain BY4742, to obtain strain ZD-L-000 for production of 0.17 mg · L(-1) lycopene. Improving supplies of isoprenoid precursors was then investigated for increasing lycopene production.

[Cloning and characterization of cDNA encoding Psammosilene tunicoides squalene synthase].

The total triterpene saponins of Psammosilene tunicoides have significant pharmacologic activity. Psammosilene tunicoides squalene synthase (PSS) is a gateway enzyme to regulate the biosynthesis of total triterpene saponins extracted from the root of Psammosilene tunicoides which is an endangered species. In this paper, cDNA encoding of PSS was cloned by the degenerate primer PCR and rapid-amplification of cDNA ends (RACE).

[Ribosomal DNA ITS sequence of analysis of Psammosilene tunicoides from different populations].

Objective: To analyze the ribosomal ITS sequence variation of Psammosilene tuncolides W. C. Wu et C.