Meat analogs grown artificially in the laboratory, i.e. without animal cells themselves, could help feed Earth’s growing population. Unfortunately, “test tube meat” is still very expensive to produce. The authors of the new paper figured out how to make the process cheaper and more accessible; To do this, they forced the cells to synthesize growth factors for themselves.

The population of planet Earth has surpassed eight billion and continues to grow steadily. At the same time, the amount of resources available to humankind (including food products) is clearly not keeping up. To feed such a large number of people and avoid global humanitarian disasters, scientists are looking for alternative food sources, including those rich in valuable protein.

A living example is test-tube meat, which are cells of agricultural animal species grown on nutrient media in the laboratory. Obtaining such meat is much cheaper than raising a whole pig or, for example, a cow. In addition, technology allows you to avoid many of the costs of animal husbandry (dangerous use of antibiotics and hormones and not keeping animals in conditions where they can suffer).

Many startups are working on the development of this biotechnological initiative, solid scientific publications are devoted to it, but “test tube meat” is still far from the mass consumer. Unfortunately, this type of production faces difficulties, especially due to the banal high cost of nutrient medium components for cells.

The authors of a new study published in the journal Sustainability of Cell Reportshas found a way to reduce one of the main costs of growing “artificial meat.” The innovation makes it possible to prevent the activation of the growth factor FGF2 (fibroblast growth factor 2).

The thing is that, unlike laboratory-grown bacteria or, for example, algae, animal cell cultures cannot do without special growth factors. These are substances that stimulate the growth, differentiation and division of cells – often the synthesis of such compounds is occupied by other cells of the same organism. Deprived of growth factors, the cell quickly stops dividing or dies.

Therefore, biologists who grow cell cultures of animals “in a test tube” always add growth factors (in addition to minerals, vitamins, etc.) to the nutrient media. They are special proteins that are quite expensive to obtain and not always convenient to use.

Researchers from the American University of Tufts (Tufts University) have found an ingenious way to grow cells without administering external growth hormone (in this case, fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2)). They modified the genome of the cow’s muscle stem cells (immortalized bovine satellite cells, iBSC) so that they began to synthesize the growth factor themselves or could do without it. These cells grew well in culture and did not differ in essential properties of the original bovine cells.

An important advantage of the new cells is that they do not belong to GMOs, that is, genetically modified organisms with foreign DNA inserted into their genome. All genetic manipulations in this case were limited to changing the genome of the cells. Therefore, the strict legal restrictions governing the creation of transgenic organisms do not apply to “meat in a test tube”.

This innovation makes mass production of “test tube meat” much more realistic, since 90 percent of its cost consists of the cost of growth factors. The authors of the paper also noted that the technology could be scaled up for the production of other types of meat (pork, chicken, and even fish) because the growth of the corresponding cells is essentially the same and requires growth factors very similar to FGF2.