Naturally occurring carotenoids’ demand is increasing because of their need
in the pharmaceuticals, food, cosmetics, flavor, and animal feed industries. Extraction
and synthesis of carotenoids are expensive and technically challenging. To fulfil the
ever-increasing demand for the production of carotenoids, microbial production of
carotenoids seems to be an attractive alternative to current extraction from natural
sources. For carotenoid overproduction in microorganisms, metabolic engineering as
well as synthetic biology strategies, have been extensively used to reconstruct and
optimize pathways of carotenoid production. Modified and advanced strategies such as
the novel and specific enzymes, protein engineering, target gene screening, and
regulation tools should be used to improve carotenoid production. The applications of
carotenoids, biosynthetic pathways of metabolic engineering of microbial carotenoid
production, molecular breeding of carotenoids, and prospects of carotenoids are
discussed in the present review.
Keywords: Carotenoids, Microbial Production, Metabolic Engineering, Synthetic Biology.
