Dual enhancement of mycoprotein nutrition and sustainability via CRISPR-mediated metabolic engineering of Fusarium venenatum

Abstract

Mycoprotein (MP) production represents a promising environmentally sustainable strategy to address global protein deficit. To enhance the nutritional profile and production efficiency of MP, we employed CRISPR/Cas9-mediated scarless gene knockout and obtained a Fusarium venenatum strain (designated FCPD), which exhibited a 32.9% increase in essential amino acid index (EAAI) through targeted truncation of competitive metabolic pathways and regulation of amino acid metabolism or biosynthesis. FCPD achieved a 44.3% reduction in substrate consumption while improving MP production rate by 88.4% compared with the wild type (WT) strain. The cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) shows that FCPD could reduce environmental impacts such as global warming potential (GWP) by 4–61.3% under production scenarios in six representative countries. Comparative environmental performance demonstrated the superiority of FCPD-MP over cell-cultured meat and chicken meat. These findings establish CRISPR/Cas technology and metabolic engineering as the dual-purpose tool for both nutritional enhancement and environmental impact mitigation in alternative protein production.