Transcriptomic studies on the product stress response revealed that YCF1 is a beneficial factor for progesterone production in Yarrowia lipolytica

Progesterone is a widely used therapeutic hormone and a common precursor for the synthesis of pharmaceutical steroids in both mammals and plants. It has been successfully produced in heterologous microorganisms, but the market demand has not been met. The low progesterone yield, possibly due to product stress, may put pressure on the growth of strains and limit product synthesis efficiency. In this study, key pathways and genes that cause changes in amino acid and lipid metabolism and protein transport were identified through omics analysis. The expression of transporters leads to increased progesterone production and alleviated growth inhibition. Two related genes (gene IDs: 2912325 and 2908366) encoding the transporters glpF and SNQ2 improved production by 29.2 % and 51.7 %, respectively. Isoenzymes of native and exogenous transporters were screened and overexpressed. YCF1 from Saccharomyces cerevisiae exhibited the greatest benefit, increasing progesterone synthesis by 69.6 %. Our findings help reveal the impact of product stress on cellular metabolism and processes, providing research directions and literature support for the synthesis of other products.