Whole-cell biocatalytic and de novo production of alkanes from free fatty acids in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Rapid global industrialization in the past decades has led to extensive utilization of fossil fuels, which resulted in pressing environmental problems due to excessive carbon emission. This prompted increasing interest in developing advanced biofuels with higher energy density to substitute fossil fuels and bio-alkane has gained attention as an ideal drop-in fuel candidate. Production of alkanes in bacteria has been widely studied but studies on the utilization of the robust yeast host, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, for alkane biosynthesis have been lacking. In this proof-of-principle study, we present the unprecedented engineering of S. cerevisiae for conversion of free fatty acids to alkanes. A fatty acid α-dioxygenase from Oryza sativa (rice) was expressed in S. cerevisiae to transform C