As a very long chain monounsaturated fatty acid, nervonic acid (NA) holds great application potential for brain diseases. 3-ketoacyl-CoA synthase (KCS) with substrate specificity plays a key role in the carbon chain elongation cycle for NA biosynthesis. A tunable and sensitive single-gene expression regulation is necessary to overproduce NA in yeast cell. Herein, beta-estradiol inducible expression system (EIES) was employed to augment NA biosynthesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. EIES consisted of two recombinant vectors: pRS416-P-Gal1-GFP-T-CYC1 and YEplac112-P-TEF1 -ZEV-T-CYC1. The following was the optimized induction conditions of EIES in SD medium: 0.1 mu M beta-estradiol, 15 min of heat induction at 33 degrees C every 8 h within first 32 h. Using EIES to enhance KCS and ELOVLI expression, NA contents in the recombinants increased by 332 % and 101 % respectively, compared with the control strain using strong PGK promoter. NA levels were further improved by knockout of elo2 in the recombinants expressing KCS or ELOVL1. This study suggested that EIES could be a promising tool for enhancing the biosynthesis of desired metabolites.