Yeast: A platform for the production of L-tyrosine derivatives

Abstract

L-Tyrosine derivatives are widely applied in the pharmaceutical, food, and chemical industries. Their production is mainly confined to chemical synthesis and plant extract. Microorganisms, as cell factories, exhibit promising advantages for valuable chemical production to fulfill the increase in the demand of global markets. Yeast has been used to produce natural products owing to its robustness and genetic maneuverability. Focusing on the progress of yeast cell factories for the production of L-tyrosine derivatives, we summarized the emerging metabolic engineering approaches in building L-tyrosoine-overproducing yeast and constructing cell factories of three typical chemicals and their derivatives: tyrosol, p-coumaric acid, and L-DOPA. Finally, the challenges and opportunities of L-tyrosine derivatives production in yeast cell factories were also discussed.