Plants Engineered to Produce Meat Protein Myoglobin
Researchers made tobacco and lettuce plants that generate myoglobin in their chloroplasts, a possible ingredient for plant-based meat.
Updated on Nov. 11, 2026 in Botany
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Scientists engineered tobacco and lettuce plants to produce myoglobin in their chloroplasts, using genes cloned from pig and cattle. The plant-derived protein could be added to plant-based meat products to improve their colour and flavour.
Why it matters
Livestock farming uses large amounts of land and freshwater and emits methane and nitrous oxide, while many consumers want to prevent animal suffering. Plant-made myoglobin offers a route to meat-like qualities without raising animals.
The myoglobin yield of about 800 mg per kilogram dry weight in tobacco and 810 mg in lettuce is at least three times higher than nuclear-transgene tobacco, though real meat contains roughly 8.1 to 11.2 mg per gram dry weight. Whether these laboratory yields can be scaled for commercial production remains unresolved.
The players
Imperial College London
A London-based public research university whose researchers led work on engineering plants to produce myoglobin.
Kyomei
A Cambridge-based startup co-founded by a coauthor of the myoglobin study, working on related food technology.
The details
Researchers inserted the myoglobin gene into the chloroplast genome of tobacco and lettuce plants using a gene gun to shoot gene copies into seedlings. Some seedlings integrated the gene, and the transgenic plants flowered and set seed, with offspring inheriting the transgene.
Timeline
Over the next decade, the meat alternatives market is projected to grow between 8.1% and 12.3% each year.
Big Picture
The work builds on decades of chloroplast transformation in tobacco, extending the approach to lettuce, a widely eaten food crop. It positions plant-based molecular farming as a candidate route for producing animal-type proteins in competition with livestock agriculture.
For shoppers, plant-derived myoglobin could eventually make plant-based meat taste and look more like conventional meat. Consumers and food producers will be watching whether these laboratory yields translate into affordable products on store shelves.
The takeaway
Engineering plant chloroplasts to make animal proteins could reshape how meat alternatives are produced. Whether the yields hold at commercial scale will determine if the approach changes food supply.
Further reading
For more on how plant science is being applied to food production, explore the Botany section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by FOODStuff SA.
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