The Science of Alt Protein: Deconstructing bovine myogenesis for cultivated meat applications

Event description Livestock farming and conventional meat production pose significant environmental, health, and animal welfare challenges. In seeking sustainable alternatives, cultivated meat technology utilizes in vitro differentiation of myogenic progenitor cells (MPCs) into muscle cells for meat derivation. However, understanding the molecular determinants governing MPC differentiation into muscle cells, and the potential enhancement of this process through modulation of signaling pathways, remains limited. At this seminar, Dr. Ori Bar-Nur, Professor at ETH Zurich and GFI grantee, will share recent efforts to dissect the molecular landscape controlling bovine myogenesis in vitro, and how he and his colleagues explored its augmentation by small molecules, collectively reporting a medium that increases MPC differentiation compared to conventional methods. Through bulk and single-cell transcriptomics and proteomics, they documented that the enhanced medium elicited MPC de-differentiation into unique cell populations, while simultaneously forming contractile fibers expressing wide arrays of differentiation markers, significantly resembling myogenesis in vivo. The optimized method for muscle generation and the corresponding molecular roadmap may prove helpful for in vitro meat production.