Advances in production of customized functional unsaturated fatty acids in Yarrowia lipolytica

Functional unsaturated fatty acids are the main active ingredients of lipids, which not only provide energy for life activities, but also help in disease prevention, so they are widely used in health care products, medical treatment, and functional foods. Current resource limitations and climate change encourage the development of sustainable production approaches for functional unsaturated fatty acids. Using the microbial cell factory is an efficient and sustainable approach. Yarrowia lipolytica is considered a particularly attractive platform for sustainable lipid production due to strong lipid accumulation capacity, mature gene-editing tools, and strong environmental tolerance. In this review, we introduced the contribution of key rate-limiting elongase and desaturase in the synthesis of functional unsaturated fatty acids in detail. In addition, from the product perspective, we focused on the latest research strategies and existing challenges to synthesize mono fatty acids and compound fatty acids in Y. lipolytica. This review provides a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the synthesis of functional fatty acids and other oleochemical.