Sustainable Production of Omega-3 Fatty Acids By Metabolically Engineered Yarrowia Lipolytica Fermentation

The omega-3 fatty acids, cis-5, 8,11,14,17-eicosapentaenoic acid (C20:5 or EPA) and cis-4,7,10,13,16,19-docosahexaenoic acid (C22:6 or DHA), have been shown to confer wide-ranging health benefits against a number of different diseases, e.g. cardiovascular disease. DuPont has developed an advanced platform technology of metabolic engineering of the GRAS oleaginous yeast, Yarrowia lipolytica, to produce high value oil and biomass with tailored omega-3 (EPA, DHA) or omega-6 (ARA, GLA) fatty acid compositions; providing a superior source for these essential molecules for applications in nutritional supplements, functional foods, infant foods, medical foods, pharmaceuticals, and animal feeds. We report here the development of clean and sustainable commercial products of EPA oil and EPA-rich biomass by fermentation. The developed yeast triacylglyceride oil has a unique fatty acid profile with less than 5% as saturated fatty acids and more than 55% as EPA (corresponding to the highest omega-3 fatty acid reported so far in the oil). The EPA oil (Newharvest^TM) has been used as human nutritional supplement; and the EPA-rich biomass has been used as salmon feed to raise brand salmon, Verlasso^TM (www.verlasso.com). This EPA-rich biomass for feed reduced >75% fish oil consumption and produced premium salmon. Approaches in development of metabolically engineered strain candidates, strain evaluation and fermentation process for production of these two commercial products will be discussed in this talk.