Imagine picking up something that looks and chews like chicken, only it never clucked, never set foot on a farm, and needed a fraction of the land and water.
That is the promise behind a new gene-edited fungus strain from Jiangnan University in China, known as FCPD, which delivers protein with a meat-like taste while cutting resource use and greenhouse gas emissions ….
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Fusarium venenatum, the fungus at the heart of this work, already has a place in many freezers. It is the species behind well-known mycoprotein products such as Quorn, valued because its natural fibers and flavor already resemble meat ….
The catch is that its thick cell walls make some of the nutrients harder for our bodies to access.
The Jiangnan team set out to tune the fungus from the inside. Using the CRISPR Cas9 gene editing system, they deleted two of its own genes …. One gene controls chitin synthase, a key builder of the cell wall.
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The edited mycoprotein … showed a higher essential amino acid index, meaning its protein quality moved closer to that of high-value animal sources.
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