Reference: Westfall PJ, et al. (2012) Production of amorphadiene in yeast, and its conversion to dihydroartemisinic acid, precursor to the antimalarial agent artemisinin. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 109(3):E111-8

Reference Help

Abstract


Malaria, caused by Plasmodium sp, results in almost one million deaths and over 200 million new infections annually. The World Health Organization has recommended that artemisinin-based combination therapies be used for treatment of malaria. Artemisinin is a sesquiterpene lactone isolated from the plant Artemisia annua. However, the supply and price of artemisinin fluctuate greatly, and an alternative production method would be valuable to increase availability. We describe progress toward the goal of developing a supply of semisynthetic artemisinin based on production of the artemisinin precursor amorpha-4,11-diene by fermentation from engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and its chemical conversion to dihydroartemisinic acid, which can be subsequently converted to artemisinin. Previous efforts to produce artemisinin precursors used S. cerevisiae S288C overexpressing selected genes of the mevalonate pathway [Ro et al. (2006) Nature 440:940-943]. We have now overexpressed every enzyme of the mevalonate pathway to ERG20 in S. cerevisiae CEN.PK2, and compared production to CEN.PK2 engineered identically to the previously engineered S288C strain. Overexpressing every enzyme of the mevalonate pathway doubled artemisinic acid production, however, amorpha-4,11-diene production was 10-fold higher than artemisinic acid. We therefore focused on amorpha-4,11-diene production. Development of fermentation processes for the reengineered CEN.PK2 amorpha-4,11-diene strain led to production of > 40 g/L product. A chemical process was developed to convert amorpha-4,11-diene to dihydroartemisinic acid, which could subsequently be converted to artemisinin. The strains and procedures described represent a complete process for production of semisynthetic artemisinin.

Reference Type
Journal Article | Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Authors
Westfall PJ, Pitera DJ, Lenihan JR, Eng D, Woolard FX, Regentin R, Horning T, Tsuruta H, Melis DJ, Owens A, ... Show all
Primary Lit For
Additional Lit For
Review For

Gene Ontology Annotations


Increase the total number of rows showing on this page using the pull-down located below the table, or use the page scroll at the table's top right to browse through the table's pages; use the arrows to the right of a column header to sort by that column; filter the table using the "Filter" box at the top of the table.

Gene/Complex Qualifier Gene Ontology Term Aspect Annotation Extension Evidence Method Source Assigned On Reference

Phenotype Annotations


Increase the total number of rows showing on this page using the pull-down located below the table, or use the page scroll at the table's top right to browse through the table's pages; use the arrows to the right of a column header to sort by that column; filter the table using the "Filter" box at the top of the table; click on the small "i" buttons located within a cell for an annotation to view further details.

Gene Phenotype Experiment Type Mutant Information Strain Background Chemical Details Reference

Disease Annotations


Increase the total number of rows showing on this page using the pull-down located below the table, or use the page scroll at the table's top right to browse through the table's pages; use the arrows to the right of a column header to sort by that column; filter the table using the "Filter" box at the top of the table.

Gene Disease Ontology Term Qualifier Evidence Method Source Assigned On Reference

Regulation Annotations


Increase the total number of rows displayed on this page using the pull-down located below the table, or use the page scroll at the table's top right to browse through the table's pages; use the arrows to the right of a column header to sort by that column; to filter the table by a specific experiment type, type a keyword into the Filter box (for example, “microarray”); download this table as a .txt file using the Download button or click Analyze to further view and analyze the list of target genes using GO Term Finder, GO Slim Mapper, SPELL, or YeastMine.

Regulator Target Direction Regulation Of Happens During Method Evidence

Post-translational Modifications


Increase the total number of rows showing on this page by using the pull-down located below the table, or use the page scroll at the table's top right to browse through its pages; use the arrows to the right of a column header to sort by that column; filter the table using the "Filter" box at the top of the table.

Site Modification Modifier Reference

Interaction Annotations


Genetic Interactions

Increase the total number of rows showing on this page by using the pull-down located below the table, or use the page scroll at the table's top right to browse through the table's pages; use the arrows to the right of a column header to sort by that column; filter the table using the "Filter" box at the top of the table; click on the small "i" buttons located within a cell for an annotation to view further details about experiment type and any other genes involved in the interaction.

Interactor Interactor Allele Assay Annotation Action Phenotype SGA score P-value Source Reference

Physical Interactions

Increase the total number of rows showing on this page by using the pull-down located below the table, or use the page scroll at the table's top right to browse through the table's pages; use the arrows to the right of a column header to sort by that column; filter the table using the "Filter" box at the top of the table; click on the small "i" buttons located within a cell for an annotation to view further details about experiment type and any other genes involved in the interaction.

Interactor Interactor Assay Annotation Action Modification Source Reference

Functional Complementation Annotations


Increase the total number of rows showing on this page by using the pull-down located below the table, or use the page scroll at the table's top right to browse through its pages; use the arrows to the right of a column header to sort by that column; filter the table using the "Filter" box at the top of the table.

Gene Species Gene ID Strain background Direction Details Source Reference