Yeast strains autonomously producing steroids
AssigneeAventis Pharma S.A.
InventorsRoberto Spagnoli, Tilman Achstetter, Gilles Cauet, Eric Degryse, Bruno Dumas, Denis Pompon, Jacques Winter
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Abstract
The present invention relates to genetically modified yeast strains autonomously producing, from a simple carbon source, steroids. The invention also relates to a method for producing steroids from such yeast strains.
Claims30
A genetically modified yeast strain autonomously producing, from a simple carbon source, a steroid or steroid derivative, derived from cholesterol metabolism, characterized in that said steroid or steroid derivative is included in the group consisting of. 17α-hydroxypregnenolone, cortisol, cortexolone, 17α-hydroxyprogesterone, and derivatives of these steroids.
The yeast strain as claimed in one of claims 1 to 10, characterized in that it has at least one heterologous gene or cDNA in a expression block, said gene or cDNA being chosen from the group consisting of the gene of sterol Δ7-reductase, of cytochrome P450 SCC, of adrenodoxin, of adrenodoxin reductase, of 3β-hydrosteroid dehydrogenase isomerase, of cytochrome b5, of cytochrome P450 reductase, of cytochrome P450 C17, of cytochrome P450 C21 and of cytochrome P450 C11, and of the sequences encoding these proteins.
A yeast strain, characterized in that it is the CDR07 Mat-α or TGY260 strain, deposited with the CNCM on Jan. 24, 2001, under the respective accession numbers I-2616 and I-2615, or a strain obtained after crossing of CDR07 Mat-α and TGY260, and optionally sporulation and transformation with a plasmid from yeast, in particular the UCY2 or UCY4 strain.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.