OPENPichia® platform
OPENPichia® platform
OPENPichia strains
In the spirit of open science, the Callewaert lab at the VIB-UGhent Center for Medical Biotechnology is making available competitive free-to-operate chassis strains of the biotechnologically favored yeast, Komagataella phaffii, which is commonly referred to as Pichia pastoris. Like the industrial strain NRRL Y-11430, the OPENPichia strains derive from the original Herman Phaff type strain, as validly deposited in the National Collection of Yeast Cultures (NCYC). They are provided for a modest one-time fee, enabling both the NCYC culture collection and VIB to maintain the resource and expand it. VIB obtained a distribution license from the NCYC culture collection allowing the distribution of the type strain and the engineered OPENPichia mutants/derivatives, which can be freely used both for research and commercial product manufacturing.
OPENPichia MoClo kit
To enable easy and fast generation of (multiple) expression vectors for Pichia, the Callewaert lab at VIB developed a Golden Gate-based modular cloning kit, made completely out of novely synthesized parts to avoid any issues with third-party MTA's. This toolkit is made available to the scientific and biotechnology industry communities, including for use in commercial manufacturing, under a license- and royalty-free MTA. Distribution of quality-controlled plasmids is organized through the not-for-profit governmental Belgian Coordinated Collection of Microorganisms (BCCM) at modest rates that enable sustainability of the resource.
Claes K, Van Herpe D, Vanluchene R, Roels C, Van Moer B, Wyseure E, Vandewalle K, Eeckhaut H, Yilmaz S, Vanmarcke S, Çıtak E, Fijalkowska D, Grootaert H, Lonigro C, Meuris L, Michielsen G, Naessens J, van Schie L, De Rycke R, De Bruyne M, Borghgraef P, and Callewaert N. OPENPichia: licence-free Komagataella phaffii chassis strains and toolkit for protein expression. Nat microb (2024) doi: 10.1038/s41564-023-01574-w
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-023-01574-w
OPENPichia® is a registered trademark of VIB vzw.
1Kurtzman, C. P. Description of Komagataella phaffii sp. nov. and the transfer of Pichia pseudopastoris to the methylotrophic yeast genus Komagataella. Int. J. Syst. Evol. 55, 973–976 (2005).
2Brady, J. R. et al. Comparative genome‐scale analysis of Pichia pastoris variants informs selection of an optimal base strain. Biotechnology and Bioengineering 117, 543–555 (2020).
3OPENPichia: building a free-to-operate Komagataella phaffii protein expression toolkit | bioRxiv. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.12.13.519130v1.
4 Heiss, S., Maurer, M., Hahn, R., Mattanovich, D. & Gasser, B. Identification and deletion of the major secreted protein of Pichia pastoris. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 97, 1241–1249 (2013).