Design of an inducible expression vector with the gal promoter for lycopene production in S. cerevisiae

Lycopene is a carotenoid found in red fruits and vegetables and is widely used as a dietary supplement. Known for its antioxidant properties, lycopene also has cardioprotective, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammatory effects. While its commercial production traditionally comes from tomato extracts, recent innovative methods like metabolic engineering have enabled more efficient production. These engineering strategies aim to enhance lycopene production by regulating the metabolic pathways of microorganisms. Specifically, S.cerevisiae is used as an ideal background cell in lycopene synthesis. Lycopene is synthesized through the mevalonate (MVA) pathway in eukaryotic organisms and the 1-deoxy-D-xylulose-5-phosphate (DXP) pathway in prokaryotic organisms. The genes CrtE, CrtI, and CrtB in these pathways are important for synthesizing intermediate products necessary for lycopene synthesis. Since the GAL promoter is a strong promoter, it is used for the expression of CrtE, CrtI, and CrtB genes in lycopene production studies. In this study, a lycopene expression vector was designed for this purpose. The designed vector includes the inducible GAL promoter, CrtE, CrtI, and CrtB genes, and the termination regions tGPM1, tPGK1, and tCYC1. Additionally, the designed vector contains GAL80-up and GAL80-down regions to delete the GAL80 gene, which is responsible for the regulation of galactose metabolism in the S. cerevisiae genome, and to integrate the cassette necessary for lycopene production into the same region