Candida rugosa lipase, a significant catalyst, had been widely employed to catalyze various chemical reactions such as non-specific, stereo-specific hydrolysis and esterification for industrial biocatalytic applications. Several isozymes encoded by the lip gene family, namely lip1 to lip7, possess distinct thermal stability and substrate specificity, among which the recombinant LIP1 showed a distinguished catalytic characterization. In this study, we utilized PCR to remove an unnecessary linker of pGAPZalphaC vector and used overlap extension PCR-based multiple site-directed mutagenesis to convert the 19 non-universal CTG-serine codons into universal TCT-serine codons and successfully express a highly active recombinant C. rugosa LIP1 in the Pichia expression system. Response surface methodology and 4-factor-5-level central composite rotatable design were adopted to evaluate the effects of growth parameters, such as temperature (21.6-38.4 degrees C), glucose concentration (0.3-3.7%), yeast extract (0.16-1.84%), and pH (5.3-8.7) on the lipolytic activity of LIP1 and biomass of P. pastoris. Based on ridge max analysis, the optimum LIP1 production conditions were temperature, 24.1 degrees C; glucose concentration, 2.6%; yeast extract, 1.4%; and pH 7.6. The predicted value of lipolytic activity was 246.9+/-39.7 U/ml, and the actual value was 253.3+/-18.8 U/ml. The lipolytic activity of the recombinant LIP1 resulting from the present work is twofold higher than that achieved by a methanol induction system.