Move over meat… scientists have engineered a fungal organism that produces protein more efficiently than conventional livestock while dramatically reducing environmental damage.
Researchers at Jiangnan University in China used CRISPR gene editing to create an enhanced strain of Fusarium venenatum, the fungus behind commercial mycoprotein products. Discovered in the 1960s, this fungal species has long been studied and even heralded as a potential alternative to meat protein.
Now, the new engineered version, which the research team tested at industrial scale, consumes 44% less glucose per kilogram of product while producing nearly double the protein output of unmodified strains.
When compared to conventional chicken production and lab-grown meat across multiple environmental metrics, the gene-edited mycoprotein demonstrated clear advantages in greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and water consumption.
“There is a popular demand for better and more sustainable protein for food,” explained co-author Xiao Liu of Jiangnan University in Wuxi, China, in a press statement. “We successfully made a fungus not only more nutritious but also more environmentally friendly by tweaking its genes.”
Published in Trends in Biotechnology, the research paper validated production at a 5,000-liter industrial fermentation scale, addressing two critical challenges in alternative protein development: improving nutritional quality while simultaneously reducing environmental footprint.
Grown in giant metal tanks filled with feedstock made with sugar and nutrients like ammonium sulfate, the fungal spores in their wild conventional state are inefficient to grow. The research team needed to figure out how to change that.
A picture of Fusarium venenatum (image: Xiao Liu).
The team focused on two main genetic issues that have long stood in the way of making this fungus a proper meat alternative: thick cell walls and mushroom metabolism. The engineering strategy targeted these two specific genes, aiming to eliminate them.
First, the researchers targeted the genetic markers behind “chitin,” a tough polymer that forms fungal cell walls. Great for fungal survival, but hard on the human tummy. They successfully decreased it by 29% in the modified strain, making the protein inside more digestible.
Secondly, the team altered the fungus’s metabolic pathway, shifting it away from producing large amounts of carbon dioxide toward protein synthesis.
The nutritional improvements proved substantial. The essential amino acid index, a measure of protein quality, increased by 33%, while protein digestibility improved from 52.65% to 56.66%. The final product had a protein content of 52.2% on a dry-weight basis, comparable to that of many meat products. Molecular analysis revealed that these changes primarily affected six metabolic pathways involved in amino acid biosynthesis and carbon metabolism, fundamentally rewiring the organism’s nutrient processing.
Moreover, the gene editing employed “scarless” modifications that leave no foreign DNA in the final organism, which regulatory frameworks love, particularly in the United States, where such modifications face less stringent oversight than traditional genetic modification.
The research team conducted comprehensive life cycle assessments across eight production scenarios in different countries, accounting for variations in energy grids and agricultural systems. Across all scenarios, the gene-edited mycoprotein reduced global warming potential by 4-61% compared to the unmodified version, with the largest reductions occurring in countries with cleaner electricity grids.
When benchmarked against conventional chicken meat, the engineered mycoprotein outperformed across multiple categories, including greenhouse gas emissions, land requirements, stratospheric ozone depletion, and freshwater eutrophication.
According to the study, this modified fungus really shines due to its efficiency. The engineered version is about 2.24 times more efficient than its wild cousin, so it requires significantly less feedstock, or in other words, glucose. Since most glucose is produced from corn and other similar crops, which account for a huge chunk of global warming impacts, this fungus needs less of it, reducing agricultural pressure.
Add to that the fact that the engineered fungus, at industrial scale, produced 26.85 kg per hour compared to 14.25 kg per hour for conventional wild strains (an 88% increase) and requires about 44% less glucose to grow, and the economics of production seem to indicate this is a viable alternative to meat.
However, this is still an early model.
Mycoprotein still trails plant-based proteins like pea protein in overall environmental performance. The fermentation process requires significant energy inputs, and outcomes depend heavily on the electricity source, which varies depending on how a country generates electricity. Moreover, glucose production worldwide is not equal, as some countries are better able to grow corn and similar crops than others.
That being said, the technology’s ultimate impact on food sustainability will hinge on whether it can scale rapidly enough to meaningfully offset growing meat consumption, particularly in developing economies where protein demand is rising fastest.
“Gene-edited foods like this can meet growing food demands without the environmental costs of conventional farming,” says Liu.
MJ Banias covers space, security, and technology with The Debrief. You can email him at mj@thedebrief.org or follow him on Twitter @mjbanias.