Production of Rebaudioside A from Stevioside Catalyzed by the Engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Rebaudioside A has superior taste quality among the steviol glycosides extracted from Stevia rebaudiana leaves. Given its high purity as a general-purpose sweetener, rebaudioside A has received significant attention and has been widely applied in food and beverages in recent decades. Stevioside is one of the major steviol glycosides and can be converted to rebaudioside A by the uridine-diphosphate dependent glucosyltransferase UGT76G1 in S. rebaudiana. To explore the applicability of and limits in producing rebaudioside A from stevioside through whole-cell biocatalysis, the engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae expressing UGT76G1, using a newly constructed constitutive expression vector, was used as the whole-cell biocatalyst. Citrate was added to the reaction mixture to allow metabolic regulation when glucose was fed to provide the activated sugar donor UDP-glucose for glycosylation of stevioside in vivo. In an evaluation of the whole-cell reaction parameters involving cell permeability, temperature, pH, citrate and Mg²⁺ concentrations, and glucose feeding, production of 1160.5 mg/L rebaudioside A from 2 g/L stevioside was achieved after 48 h without supplementation of extracellular UDP-glucose.