Biomedical Letters

Pichia pastoris expression system: a potential candidate to express protein in industrial and biopharmaceutical domains

Imran Safder 1, Sajad Khan 5, Iram-us Islam 2, Muhammad Kazim Ali 2,4, Zainab Bibi 2,4, Muhammad Waqas 2, 3*

1 H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, University of Karachi, Karachi-72570, Pakistan

2 Department of Biotechnology, Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology, Gulshan-e-Iqbal campus, Karachi, Pakistan

3 Key Laboratory for Developmental Genes and Human Disease, Ministry of Education, Institute of Life Sciences, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China

4 Karachi Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (KIBGE), University of Karachi, Karachi-72570, Pakistan

5 Dadabhoy Institute of Higher Education, Karachi, Pakistan

Abstract

The methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris is a widely used, well established protein expression system for the production of biopharmaceutical and industrial enzymes. It is by far one of the most commonly utilized microbial species due to its high cell density growth, ease to use, rapid expression time with low cost and post-translation modification system. Moreover, its strong regulated promoters, the capacity to meet high production yield even of proteins of large molecular weight, simple recovery and purification steps makes it superior in contrast to other expression systems. Recent advancements in high-throughput genomics and development of humanized glycosylated Pichia pastoris strain will increase its importance in biopharmaceutical production. This review aims to highlight Pichia pastoris expression system as a potential candidate to express industrial and biopharmaceutical proteins alongside bioprocess design and expression optimization strategies to increase product yield.