Table 2

Recombinant strain	Transformed plasmid	Genes encoded	DNA origin	Enzymatic activity	Enzymatic substrate	Enzymatic product	GenBank accession No.
E. coli BL-EBI	pACCRT-EBI	Eu-crtE	Erwinia uredovora	GGPP synthase	FPP/GPP	GGPP	D90087
		Eu-crtB	Erwinia uredovora	Phytoene synthase	GGPP	Phytoene	D90087
		Eu-crtI	Erwinia uredovora	Phytoene desaturase	Phytoene	Lycopene	D90087
					ζ-carotene	Lycopene	D90087
					Neurosporene	Lycopene	D90087
E. coli BL-EBP	pACCRT-EBP	Eu-crtE	Erwinia uredovora	GGPP synthase	FPP/GPP	GGPP	D90087
		Eu-crtB	Erwinia uredovora	Phytoene synthase	GGPP	Phytoene	D90087
		Sc-crtP	Synechoccocus sp.	Phytoene desaturase	Phytoene	ζ-carotene	X55289
E. coli BL-EBR	pACCRT-EBR	Eu-crtE	Erwinia uredovora	GGPP synthase	FPP/GPP	GGPP	D90087
		Eu-crtB	Erwinia uredovora	Phytoene synthase	GGPP	Phytoene	D90087
		Rc-crtR	Rhodobacter capsulatus	Phytoene desaturase	Phytoene	Neurosporene	CAA77540
E. coli BL-zdsFc	pET21-zdsFc	zds-Fc	Ficus carica	Zeta carotene desaturase	ζ-carotene	Lycopene	JN896309
					Neurosporene	Lycopene	JN896309
E. coli BL-EBPZ	pACCRT-EBP	Eu-crtE	Erwinia uredovora	GGPP synthase	FPP/GPP	GGPP	D90087
		Eu-crtB	Erwinia uredovora	Phytoene synthase	GGPP	Phytoene	D90087
		Sc-crtP	Synechoccocus sp.	Phytoene desaturase	Phytoene	ζ-carotene	X55289
	pET21-zdsFc	zds-Fc	Ficus carica	Zeta carotene desaturase	ζ-carotene	Lycopene	JN896309
					Neurosporene	Lycopene	JN896309
E. coli BL-EBRZ	pACCRT-EBR	Eu-crtE	Erwinia uredovora	GGPP synthase	FPP/GPP	GGPP	D90087
		Eu-crtB	Erwinia uredovora	Phytoene synthase	GGPP	Phytoene	D90087
		Rc-crtR	Rhodobacter capsulatus	Phytoene desaturase	Phytoene	Neurosporene	CAA77540
	pET21-zdsFc	zds-Fc	Ficus carica	Zeta carotene desaturase	Neurosporene	Lycopene	JN896309

Table 2: Recombinant E. coli strains generated in this study, and the DNA plasmids used to transform them. The table also includes the genes encoded by the recombinant plasmids, plant species where the genes originated from, as well as the enzyme names and enzymatic activity of the proteins encoded by those genes.