The Vow company used a DNA sequence for myoglobin, a protein highly present in skeletal muscle cells that is key to flavoring meat.
Specialists from the Australian company Vow have prepared a mammoth meatball after managing to cultivate in laboratory conditions a type of analogous meat of this extinct animal.
In collaboration with Professor Ernst Wolvetang, from the Institute for Biotechnology at the University of Queensland, Vow used DNA from myoglobina protein highly present in skeletal muscle cells that is key to flavor the meat.
The woolly mammoth myoglobin DNA sequence was completed with elephant DNA. They then introduced the ‘mixture’ into myoblastic stem cells from a sheep, which replicated to 20,000 million of times and which Vow later used to grow mammoth meat.
“Was extremely easy and fast. We did it in a couple of weeks,” Wolvetang told The Guardian. As he explained to the outlet, at first they thought of growing dodo (an extinct bird) meat in vitro, but they lacked the necessary DNA sequences for it.
extinction risks
In a promotional video, Vow points out that they chose the woolly mammoth, because it became “a monumental symbol of what we can lose now”, referring to the extinction risks for “a million species, including humans”.
Along these lines, they insist that their work is aimed at addressing “the intensification of livestock“, characterized as “one of the biggest causes” of climate change.
For his part, the executive director of the company, George Peppou, stresses that the objective of this advance is to make it a reality that “a few billion meat consumers stop consuming animal protein [convencionales]” and replace them with “products that can be generated in electrified systems”.
Meanwhile, cultured Japanese quail meat is expected to be the first to be sold to diners in Singapore restaurants this year, the media reports.
Source: RT
