Harnessing the Endogenous 2μ Plasmid of for Pathway Construction.

pRS episomal plasmids are widely used in , owing to their easy genetic manipulations and high plasmid copy numbers (PCNs). Nevertheless, their broader application is hampered by the instability of the pRS plasmids. In this study, we designed an episomal plasmid based on the endogenous 2μ plasmid with both improved stability and increased PCN, naming it p2μM, a 2μ-modified plasmid. In the p2μM plasmid, an insertion site between the promoter and promoter was identified, where the replication (ori) of and a selection marker gene of were inserted. As a proof of concept, the tyrosol biosynthetic pathway was constructed in the p2μM plasmid and in a pRS plasmid (pRS423). As a result, the p2μM plasmid presented lower plasmid loss rate than that of pRS423. Furthermore, higher tyrosol titers were achieved in harboring p2μM plasmid carrying the tyrosol pathway-related genes. Our study provided an improved genetic manipulation tool in for metabolic engineering applications, which may be widely applied for valuable product biosynthesis in yeast.