Can plants go moo? Well, not exactly, but a new Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) study has brought a step closer to the possibility that plant seeds could manufacture and store one of milk’s most important proteins – the same ones that give milk its nutrition, creamy texture, and cheese-making properties.
The discovery would thus help overcome a major hurdle in producing real dairy proteins without cows, paving the way for more sustainable dairy ingredients, less climate change, and alternative food production.
Just published in Frontiers in Plant Science under the title “Microscope reveals surprising milk protein clusters in engineered seeds,” the research was led by Prof. Oded Shoseyov of the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food, and Environment at HUJI, together with lead author Almog Ozeri and Mai Shamir, Miron Abramson, Barak Cohen, and Amir Rudich.
The team showed that plants can successfully manufacture ß-casein, one of the major proteins found in cow’s milk. Even more surprising, the protein accumulated in an entirely unexpected location inside plant cells, revealing a previously unknown pathway that could help improve the production of animal proteins in crops.
According to their press release, “As global demand for dairy continues to grow while concerns mount over greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and water consumption associated with livestock farming, scientists have been searching for sustainable ways to produce authentic dairy proteins without relying on animals.
“Plant molecular farming, using crops as miniature protein factories, has emerged as one of the most promising approaches, but producing complex milk proteins in plants has remained a major technical challenge.”
To tackle this problem, the researchers engineered seeds from Arabidopsis (thale cress), a weed in the mustard family (Brassicaceae) native to Eurasia and Africa. It is commonly found along the shoulders of roads where plant cover is lost, or soil is churned up by construction, grading, fire, or heavy traffic.
They used it to produce bovine ß-casein fused to an oil-body protein called oleosin, which is bound to plant oil bodies. Testing several different “cellular addresses,” they directed the protein to various compartments within the plant cell to determine where it would accumulate most efficiently.
Shoseyov told The Jerusalem Post in an interview that the team’s findings were totally unexpected. “The protein absolutely behaves like real dairy ß-casein – even better.”
Asked why the plants ignored their instructions, he suggested that it was “probably due to the gap between what we think we know and what we actually know.”
“Biological systems are far more sophisticated,” Shoseyov continued. “While we can’t claim it’s an entirely new biological pathway – we need further investigation to come up with such a statement – it opens some very interesting opportunities. It’s likely that we’ve simply overlooked something that plants have always done.”
They created a “novel food ingredient that combines protein and oil that may be either integrated into existing dairy products or will be used to produce entirely new tasty and nutritious food products more cost-effectively and sustainably compared to the existing dairy industry,” he said.
“We estimate that in 18 to 24 months, we’ll reach the commercial stage. The biggest remaining obstacle ahead is adoption of the technique by industry. We have already begun discussions with the US Food and Drug Administration.”
Shoseyov already holds over 100 patents relating to his work in protein engineering, nanobiotechnology, and bio-inspired materials.
Although precision fermentation already produces dairy proteins, plants have an advantage because protein production and extraction in plants is up to 100 times cheaper compared with fermentation, he said.
