Escherichia coli strain CAR001 that produces β-carotene was genetically engineered to produce lycopene by deleting genes encoding zeaxanthin glucosyltransferase (crtX) and lycopene β-cyclase (crtY) from the crtEXYIB operon. The resulting strain, LYC001, produced 10.5 mg lycopene/l (6.5 mg/g dry cell weight, DCW). Modulating expression of genes encoding α-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, succinate dehydrogenase and transaldolase B within central metabolic modules increased NADPH and ATP supplies, leading to a 76 % increase of lycopene yield. Ribosome binding site libraries were further used to modulate expression of genes encoding 1-deoxy-D-xylulose-5-phosphate synthase (dxs) and isopentenyl diphosphate isomerase (idi) and the crt gene operon, which improved the lycopene yield by 32 %. The optimal strain LYC010 produced 3.52 g lycopene/l (50.6 mg/g DCW) in fed-batch fermentation.

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