Now Reading: Gene gun makes lettuce, tobacco produce meat-like myoglobin
-
01
Gene gun makes lettuce, tobacco produce meat-like myoglobin
Scientists at Imperial College London have genetically engineered lettuce and tobacco plants to produce myoglobin, the protein that gives meat its colour and flavour. They used a gene gun to insert pig…
The Story in Brief
Scientists at Imperial College London have genetically engineered lettuce and tobacco plants to produce myoglobin, the protein that gives meat its colour and flavour. They used a gene gun to insert pig and cattle myoglobin genes into the plants' chloroplasts. The technique yielded about 800 mg of myoglobin per kg of dry plant material, roughly three times more than inserting the gene into the plant's nuclear genome. Real meat contains 8.1, 11.2 mg of myoglobin per gram of dry weight.
The findings, published in Frontiers in Plant Science, are a proof of principle. The researchers argue that growing animal proteins in crops could eventually offer a more sustainable alternative to livestock farming, using less water and land while producing fewer greenhouse gases. The myoglobin could be extracted and added to plant-based meat products. The team also sees potential for heme-iron-enriched lettuce if regulations allow.
The Indian Opinion
Every new plant-based protein method gets hailed as the end of factory farming. This one is clever, using chloroplasts as tiny bioreactors, but the yields are still a tenth of real meat's. The gene gun is also laboratory-grade, not farm-ready. The real test will be whether this can scale to compete with a lentil patty, let alone a chicken wing. A single hectare of soy already delivers far more protein than 800 mg of myoglobin per kilo of tobacco could justify. So, how many hectares of salad would it take to replace one cattle ranch?
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
