Computational assessment of lipid production in Rhodosporidium toruloides in two‐stage and one‐stage batch bioprocesses

CASTAÑEDA, MARÍA TERESITA; NUÑEZ, SEBASTIÁN; JAMILIS, MARTÍN; DE BATTISTA, HERNÁN

Biotechnology and Bioengineering

Wiley-VCH

Año: 2023

Oleaginous yeasts are promising platforms for microbial lipids production as a renewable and sustainable alternative to vegetable oils in biodiesel production. In this paper, a thorough extit{in silico} assessment of lipid production in batch cultivation by extit{R. toruloides} was developed. By means of dynamic flux balance analysis, the traditional two-stage bioprocess performed by the native strain was contrasted with one-stage bioprocess using four designed strains obtained by gene knockout strategies. Lipid titer, yield, content, and productivity were analyzed at different initial C/N ratios as relevant performance indicators used in bioprocesses. By weighting these indicators, a global lipid efficiency metric was defined to consider different scenarios. extcolor{black}{Under simulated conditions, designed strains for lipid overproduction in one-stage bioprocess outperformed the two-stage bioprocess in terms of lipid title (up to 3-fold), lipid yield (up to 2.4-fold), lipid content (up to 2.8-fold, with a maximum of 76%) and productivity (up to 1.3-fold), depending on C/N ratios. Using these efficiency parameters and the proposed global lipid efficiency metric, the process of selecting the most suitable candidates for lipid production could be carried out prior to experimental assays. This methodology holds the potential to be extended to other oleaginous microorganisms and diverse strain design techniques.