Created immortal stem cells for growing meat

The production of cellular MEAT requires muscle and fat cells with a high ability to grow and divide. The production of such products is expensive and difficult to scale. As a rule, researchers have to isolate animal stem cells themselves or use model cell lines of less important species, such as mouse cells.

Normal muscle stem cells taken from live animals to begin culture typically only divide about 50 times before they begin to age and cease to be viable. Although theoretically even these stem cells can produce a significant amount of meat, the immortalized cells developed by scientists have a number of advantages over them. One of them is the ability to produce more mass to create meat. Another plus is that the availability of immortalized cells lowers the barrier to entry for other companies and researchers into cellular meat production .

it took two steps to convert ordinary bovine muscle stem cells into immortalized stem cells. Most cells, as they divide and age, begin to lose DNA at the ends of their chromosomes, called telomeres. Cells "wear out" like ropes. This leads to errors in copying or repairing DNA, loss of genes and, ultimately, cell death.

The researchers engineered bovine stem cells to constantly renew their telomeres, effectively keeping the chromosomes "young" and ready for the next cycle of replication and cell division. The second step to cell immortality was to force them to continuously produce a protein that stimulates a critical step in cell division. This speeds up the process and helps the cells grow faster.

Muscle stem cells are not a food-grade end product. They must not only divide and grow, but also differentiate into mature muscle cells. The scientists successfully differentiated the engineered stem cells into mature muscle cells, but not completely identical to animal cells or conventional bovine stem cells.

Scientists will further investigate whether these cells can replicate the taste and texture of natural meat.