Plants as a recombinant protein expression platform for functional food ingredients
Crop plants used as recombinant protein production hosts could offer benefits of minimal processing, cheaper equipment, and fewer downstream purification costs.
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Fermentation
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Plant-Based
- Commercial
- Research
- Production
- R&D
- Raw Materials, Ingredients, & Inputs
- Crop development
- Ingredient optimization
- Academics
- Industry
- Startups
- 2 – Early adoption
Description
Microorganisms are typically used as recombinant protein hosts but plants can also serve as expression platforms. Crop plants used as production hosts may require minimal processing into value-added ingredients, such as baking flour with integrated egg and dairy functional proteins. Plants offer ready scalability with less need for expensive equipment or downstream purification to isolate proteins of interest from inedible or undesirable hosts. Companies like Mozza and Tiamat Sciences have recently emerged to explore opportunities in this area, but there is likely room for additional entrants.

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