Startup grows egg proteins in potato fields – Nature Biotechnology

Ovalbumin, the main protein in egg whites, is sought after as an ingredient by food manufacturers as it helps to boost nutritional value and extend the shelf life of packaged products. The team engineered the potato by inserting the entire ovalbumin DNA sequence into the leaf, which thus contained instructions to produce a fully functional protein that is nutritionally and chemically identical to that in chicken eggs. The phloem, which moves nutrients from the leaves to the tubers, transports the engineered ovalbumin product.

The genetically modified PoLoPo potato looks identical to the original one, with the advantage that it makes and stores protein in tubers, effectively functioning like a mini-bioreactor. The plants are fast-growing and inexpensive to cultivate, and as they are genetically identical to the first generation they can be used to grow the next crop. Scaling up promises to be easier than in other, more expensive systems used for the production of ingredients. Liberman-Aloni, chief technology officer for PoLoPo says: “That’s the beauty of our method. For scale-up, we just need another potato field.”