Cellular agriculture has emerged as a promising strategy for producing animal-derived food components through controlled biological processes while reducing the environmental and ethical burdens associated with conventional livestock production. Among its enabling technologies, precision fermentation and cultivated-cell systems offer complementary advantages but continue to face challenges related to production costs, scalability, and functional performance. Increasingly, hybrid cellular agriculture approaches combining precision-fermented proteins, cultivated cells, and plant-derived matrices are being explored to overcome these limitations and accelerate commercialization. This review examines recombinant proteins as critical enabling components within these integrated systems. Advances in microbial expression platforms, including prokaryotic hosts such as Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis and eukaryotic hosts such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Komagataella phaffii, are critically evaluated regarding protein yield, product quality, regulatory suitability, downstream processing, and techno-economic feasibility. Industrial-scale fermentation capacities up to 80,000 L demonstrate the growing potential for large-scale recombinant protein production. Applications of recombinant proteins in edible scaffolds, serum-free culture media, extracellular matrix alternatives, and functional food ingredients are discussed alongside their associated technical and regulatory challenges. Ultimately, recombinant proteins are identified as integrative elements bridging acellular and cell-based production systems, supporting the development of scalable, economically viable, and sustainable cellular agriculture.
This work explores the development of animal-free proteins produced in laboratory settings using innovative technologies such as precision fermentation, submerged fermentation, plant cell culture, and molecular engineering, which enable the production of high-quality proteins without relying on animal farming or large-scale traditional agriculture.
The escalating global population and the environmentally inefficient nature of livestock-based protein production are intensifying demand for sustainable and scalable protein alternatives. Microbial biosynthesis, employing engineered cell factories, represents a pivotal strategy for producing functional proteins with a reduced ecological footprint. This review comprehensively examines the biosynthesis of alternative proteins (APs) via microbial precision fermentation, encompassing diverse categories including coloring proteins, flavoring and taste proteins, structuring and texturizing proteins, nutritional and functional proteins, food processing and enabling proteins, and special functional proteins. Enabling technologies, from fermentation feedstock and microbial host selection to genome/metabolic engineering, bioprocess optimization via response surface methodology/artificial neural networks, and downstream purification, are critically analyzed. Emerging strategies demonstrate substantial progress in enhancing microbial titers, achieving functional mimicry, and advancing regulatory readiness. However, persistent challenges include precise flavor replication, nutritional completeness, and food safety concerns such as allergenicity and process contaminants. Potential solutions, including advanced metabolic engineering, refined protein extraction, biocontainment strategies, and transparent regulatory frameworks, are discussed. By integrating technological innovation with targeted application mapping and regulatory foresight, this review outlines a roadmap toward scalable, safe, and functionally robust microbial AP platforms, thereby contributing to the transition toward a sustainable food system.
Zewei Lu, Zhuoer Chen, Dianqi Yang et al.· Comprehensive Reviews in Foo...· 0 citations
Recent advances and future potential in engineering methylotrophic yeasts for food protein production, with particular focus on Komagataella phaffii are reviewed, addressing the dual goals of improving both yield and quality.
Bing-Yin Peng, Masahiro Tominaga, Jun Ishii et al.· Metabolic Engineering· 1 citation
Cell culture technology underpins biopharmaceutical production, cultured meat, cell therapy, and regenerative medicine. However, the high cost, ethical concerns, safety issues, and batch-to-batch variability of cell culture media remain major barriers to industrialization, highlighting the need for sustainable alternatives. Meanwhile, tons of agricultural by-products are generated annually worldwide and may serve as valuable resources in a circular economy. This review systematically categorizes agricultural by-products into livestock, seafood, plant, and secondary processing groups and evaluates their potential roles in basal media, serum substitutes, growth factors, antibiotic alternatives, scaffolds, and functional additives. Livestock-derived sera and plasma proteins support proliferation comparable to FBS, while fish collagen peptides and microalgal extracts show growth factor-like activity and scaffold potential. Plant protein hydrolysates are already used in large-scale production, and yeast extracts and whey hydrolysates can support serum replacement and media recycling. Despite these advances, challenges remain in compositional variability, long-term safety, scale-up validation, and regulatory standardization. This study introduces a cross-functional applicability matrix that maps by-product sources to specific media functions, providing an integrated framework for material selection and a commercialization-level assessment to evaluate industrial feasibility. Overall, this review provides a comprehensive assessment of agricultural by-products as promising resources for next-generation cell culture media.
D. Lee, Chae Hyeon Bok, Y. Shin et al.· Critical reviews in food sci...· 0 citations
With global population growth, escalating ecological pressures, and evolving consumer demands for health-conscious products, traditional animal and plant protein supply models face numerous challenges-including resource scarcity, high carbon emissions, and limited nutritional diversity. The development and application of novel protein sources have become a research focus in biomanufacturing, food science, and biopharmaceuticals. These novel protein sources encompass microbial proteins, plant-based proteins, algal proteins, cell-cultured proteins, and AI-designed artificial proteins, offering advantages such as environmental sustainability, low carbon footprint, and customizable functionality that overcome the limitations of conventional protein production. This article systematically reviews the resource characteristics, development processes, and core technological frameworks of various novel protein sources. It highlights the application of cutting-edge technologies-including AI-based de novo design, precision fermentation, bioextraction, and cell culture-in protein development, analyzes current applications in food, feed, and biopharmaceutical sectors, identifies technical barriers, safety regulations, and industrialization costs, and proposes future research directions. The study aims to provide theoretical insights and technical support for the industrial-scale, high-quality development of novel protein sources.
Meng-Ling Ni, Yi Zhou· Global Agronomy Research Jou...· 0 citations
Yeast-based single-cell protein (SCP) has emerged as a promising sustainable protein source due to its high protein content, favorable nutritional profile, and ability to utilize renewable feedstocks. The conversion of food-processing wastes, agricultural by-products, and one-carbon substrates into protein-rich biomass supports waste valorization and circular bioeconomy strategies. However, efficient utilization of these diverse feedstocks remains challenging due to variations in substrate composition and microbial metabolic capacity. Recent advances in metabolic engineering, cell wall engineering, adaptive laboratory evolution, random mutagenesis, and fermentation optimization have improved substrate utilization, biomass formation, and protein accumulation in yeasts. These developments have expanded the potential applications of yeast-based SCP in protein supplements, meat products, flavoring agents, and animal feed. This review provides a comprehensive overview of yeast species for SCP production, renewable feedstock utilization, engineering approaches for enhancing biomass and protein accumulation, and the emerging applications of yeast-based SCP in sustainable food and feed systems.
Ely Yosriah, G. Evelina, Dian Shofinita et al.· Journal of Microbiology and...· 0 citations
We use cookies to run the site and, with your consent, for analytics and to show ads.
See our Cookie Policy.
