Production of foreign proteins in the yeast Pichia pastoris

Abstract

The methanol-utilizing yeast Pichia pastoris has been developed as a host system for the production of heterologous proteins of commercial interest. An industrial yeast selected for efficient growth on methanol for biomass generation, P. pastoris is readily grown on defined medium in continuous culture at high volume and density. A unique feature of the expression system is the promoter employed to drive heterologous gene expression, which is derived from the methanol-regulated alcohol oxidase I gene (AOX1) of P. pastoris, one of the most efficient and tightly regulated promoters known. The strength of the AOX1 promoter results in high expression levels in strains harboring only a single integrated copy of a foreign-gene expression cassette. Levels may often be further enhanced through the integration of multiple cassette copies into the P. pastoris genome and strategies to construct and select multicopy cassette strains have been devised. The system is particularly attractive for the secretion of foreign-gene products. Because P. pastoris endogenous protein secretion levels are low, foreign secreted proteins often appear to be virtually the only proteins in the culture broth, a major advantage in processing and purification. Key words: heterologous gene expression, methylotrophic yeast, Pichia pastoris, secretion, glycosylation.