Functional sugars have unique structural and physiological characteristics with applied perspectives for modern biomedical and biotechnological sectors, such as biomedicine, pharmaceutical, cosmeceuticals, green chemistry, and agro-food. They can also be used as starting matrices to produce biologically active metabolites of interests. Though numerous chemical synthesis routes have been proposed and deployed for the synthesis of rare sugars, however, many of them are limited and economically incompetent because of expensive raw starting feedstocks. Whereas, the biosynthesis by enzymatic means are often associated with high catalyst costs and low space-time yields. Microbial production of rare sugars via green routes using bio-renewable resources offers noteworthy solutions to overcome the aforementioned limitations of synthetic and enzymatic synthesis routes. From the microbial-based synthesis perspective, the lipogenic yeast Yarrowia lipolytica is rapidly evolving as the most prevalent and unique “non-model organism” in the bio-production arena. Due to high flux tendency through the tri-carboxylic acid cycle intermediates and precursors such as acetyl-CoA and malonyl-CoA, this yeast has been widely investigated to meet the increasing demand of industrially relevant fine chemicals, including functional sugars. Incredible interest in Y. lipolytica originates from its robust tolerance to unstable pH, salt levels, and organic compounds, which subsequently enable easy bioprocess optimization. Meaningfully, GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status creates Y. lipolytica as an attractive and environmentally friendly microbial host for the manufacturing of nutraceuticals, fermented food, and dietary supplements. In this review, we highlight the recent and state-of-the-art research progress on Y. lipolytica as a host to synthesize bio-based compounds of interest beyond the realm of well-known fatty acid production. The unique physicochemical properties, biotechnological applications, and biosynthesis of an array of value-added functional sugars including erythritol, threitol, fructooligosaccharides, galactooligosaccharides, isomalto-oligosaccharides, isomaltulose, trehalose, erythrulose, xylitol, and mannitol using sustainable carbon sources are thoroughly vetted. Finally, we conclude with perspectives that would be helpful to engineer Y. lipolytica in greening the twenty-first century biomedical and biotechnological sectors of the modern world.

功能性糖具有独特的结构和生理特性，在现代生物医学和生物技术领域（如生物医学，制药，药妆，绿色化学和农业食品）具有应用前景。它们也可用作起始基质，以产生感兴趣的生物活性代谢物。尽管已经提出了许多化学合成路线并将其用于合成稀有糖，但是由于昂贵的原料原料，其中许多是有限的并且在经济上不可行。然而，通过酶促手段的生物合成通常与高催化剂成本和低时空产率相关。使用生物可再生资源通过绿色途径微生物生产稀有糖提供了值得注意的解决方案，以克服上述合成和酶促合成途径的局限性。从基于微生物的合成角度来看，生脂酵母解脂耶氏酵母正在迅速发展成为生物生产领域中最普遍和独特的“非模式生物”。由于通过三羧酸循环中间体和前体（例如乙酰辅酶A和丙二酰辅酶A）的通量趋势较高，因此对该酵母进行了广泛研究，以满足工业上需要的精细化学品（包括功能性糖）的不断增长的需求。对解脂耶氏酵母的不可思议的兴趣源于其对不稳定的pH值，盐水平和有机化合物的强大耐受力，随后可轻松进行生物工艺优化。有意义的是，GRAS（通常被认为是安全的）状态会产生解脂耶氏酵母作为生产保健食品，发酵食品和膳食补充剂的有吸引力且环保的微生物宿主。在这篇综述中，我们着重介绍解脂耶氏酵母作为合成感兴趣的生物基化合物的宿主的最新和最先进的研究进展，而这些化合物是众所周知的脂肪酸生产领域之外的。充分利用可持续碳源对一系列增值功能糖（包括赤藓糖醇，苏糖醇，低聚果糖，半乳糖低聚糖，异麦芽低聚糖，异麦芽酮糖，海藻糖，赤藓糖，木糖醇和甘露糖醇）的独特理化性质，生物技术应用和生物合成进行了彻底的研究。最后，我们以有助于解脂耶氏酵母的观点总结。 在绿化二十一世纪现代世界的生物医学和生物技术领域。