Innovative systems for obtaining leghemoglobin for meat analog products

19/10/2020

Current trends in the food market point to an increase in the number of consumers who, for ethical or environmental reasons, abandon the consumption of meat, to switch to a type of diet based on plants. However, the market lacks a supply of plant-based products that maintain the desirable nutritional and organoleptic attributes of meat (meat analogs) and that represent a satisfactory alternative to the meat products that are being consumed. Thus, many meat analogs, such as discs based on vegetable protein (e.g. soybeans), once cooked, are far from offering the typical appearance, flavor and color of a beef burger.

It is known that leghemoglobin, a vegetable protein derived from soybean nodules, is capable of conferring color and base of meat flavor in vegetable derivatives, or mixtures of meat and vegetable material. However, obtaining this protein for industrial purposes from its natural origin is not feasible and therefore some companies in the international market have started its production by means of expression in modified yeast cells, specifically in Pichia pastoris.
In this context, the meat companies Espuña SA and Costa Brava Mediterranean Foods (through Coopecarn Girona SLU) have hired the services of the group of Molecular Biology of Yeasts from the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine of the UAB to proceed with the research project INNOLEG, in order to develop new methods for obtaining leghemoglobin, in this case based on its expression in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The massive expression of this protein represents a technological challenge, since it will involve redesigning the metabolic pathway that leads to the synthesis of the Heme group, whose incorporation into the final protein within the cell is essential. These investigations, which are expected to last two years, are part of the Rural Development Program of Catalonia 2014-2020 (Grups Operatius), are coordinated by INNOVACC and financed in part by the DARP and the EAFRD.

The success of this project would be a technological advantage for the companies involved, giving them the possibility of producing leghemoglobin at an industrial level and allowing them to use it to improve plant preparations for human consumption. The general acceptance by the public of similar meat products, with lower carbon and water footprints than conventional preparations, would also have a clear positive environmental impact.

This information is related to the following SDG

• Industry, innovation and infrastructure
• Responsible consumption and production