Production of CoQ10 in fission yeast by expression of genes responsible for CoQ10 biosynthesis

Abstract

Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is essential for energy production and has become a popular supplement in recent years. In this study, CoQ10 productivity was improved in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomy-ces pombe. Ten CoQ biosynthetic genes were cloned and overexpressed in S. pombe. Strains expressing individual CoQ biosynthetic genes did not produce higher than a 10% increase in CoQ10 production. In addition, simultaneous expression of all ten coq genes did not result in yield improvements. Genes responsible for the biosynthesis of p-hydroxybenzo-ate and decaprenyl diphosphate, both of which are CoQ biosynthesis precursors, were also overexpres-sed. CoQ10 production was increased by overexpres-sion of Eco-ubiC (encoding chorismate lyase), Eco-aroFFBR (encoding 3-deoxy-D-arabino-heptulo-sonate 7-phosphate synthase), or Sce-thmgr1 (encoding truncated HMG-CoA reductase). Furthermore, simultaneous expression of these precursor genes resulted in two fold increases in CoQ10 production.