Impact of Culture Condition Modulation on the High-Yield, High-Specificity, and Cost-Effective Production of Terpenoids from Microbial Sources: a Review

ABSTRACT

Recent years have seen a remarkable increase in the nonnatural production of terpenoids by the microbial route. This is due to the advancements in synthetic biology tools and techniques, which have overcome the challenges associated with the nonnative production of terpenoids from microbial hosts. Although microbes in their native form have the ability to grow in a wide range of physicochemical parameters, such as pH, temperature, agitation, aeration, etc., after genetic modifications, culture conditions need to be optimized in order to achieve improved titers of desired terpenoids from engineered microbes. The physicochemical parameters, together with medium supplements, such as inducers, carbon and nitrogen sources, and cofactor supply, not only play an important role in high-yield production of target terpenoids from an engineered host, but also reduce the accumulation of undesired metabolites in fermentation medium and thus facilitate product recovery. Furthermore, for the economical production of terpenoids, the biomass-derived sugars can be utilized together with the optimized culture conditions. In the present minireview, we have highlighted the impact of culture condition modulation on high-yield and high-specificity production of terpenoids from engineered microbes. Finally, utilization of economical feedstock has also been discussed for cost-effective and sustainable production of terpenoids.