Metabolic engineering of the terpenoid biosynthetic pathway of Escherichiacoli for production of the carotenoids beta-carotene and zeaxanthin

Metabolic engineering of the early non-mevalonate terpenoid pathway of Esch erichia coli was carried out to increase the supply of prenyl pyrophosphate s as precursor for carotenoid production. Transformation with the genes dxs for over-expression of 1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate synthase, dxr for 1- deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate reductoisomerase and idi encoding an isopenten yl pyrophosphate stimulated carotenogenesis up to 3.5-fold. Co-transformati on of idi with either dxs or dxr had an additive effect on ss-carotene and zeaxanthin production which reached 1.6 mg g(-1) dry wt.