Thraustochytrid strains belonging to the genus Aurantiochytrium accumulate significant amounts of lipids including polyunsaturated fatty acids and carotenoids and, therefore, are expected to be used for industrial production of various valuable materials. Although various efforts such as chemical mutagenesis and homologous gene recombination have been made to improve lipid productivity of Aurantiochytrium species, low specificity and efficiency in the conventional methods hinder the research progress. Here, we attempted to apply a genome editing technology, the CRISPR-Cas9 system as an alternative molecular breeding technique for Aurantiochytrium species to accelerate the metabolic engineering. The efficiency of specific gene knock-in by the homologous recombination increased more than 10-folds by combining the CRISPR-Cas9 system. As a result of disrupting the genes associated with β-oxidation of fatty acids by the improved method, the genome edited strains with higher fatty acid productivity were isolated, demonstrating for the first time that the CRISPR-Cas9 system was effective for molecular breeding of the strains in the genus Aurantiochytrium to improve lipid productivity.

属于梭菌属的破囊壶菌菌株积累了大量的脂质，包括多不饱和脂肪酸和类胡萝卜素，因此，有望用于各种有价值材料的工业生产。尽管已经进行了诸如化学诱变和同源基因重组之类的各种努力来提高金眼鱼种的脂质生产率，但是常规方法中的低特异性和高效率阻碍了研究进展。在这里，我们尝试将基因组编辑技术，即CRISPR-Cas9系统，用作金眼鱼的另一种分子育种技术种加速代谢工程。通过结合CRISPR-Cas9系统，通过同源重组的特异性基因敲入效率提高了10倍以上。由于通过改进的方法破坏了与脂肪酸的β-氧化有关的基因，结果分离出了具有更高脂肪酸生产率的基因组编辑菌株，这首次证明CRISPR-Cas9系统可有效地对CRISPR-Cas9分子进行育种。棘孢属中的一些菌株以提高脂质生产率。