Development of a Normal Porcine Cell Line Growing in a Heme-Supplemented, Serum-Free Condition for Cultured Meat

Yeon Ah Seo, Min Jeong Cha, Sehyeon Park, Seungki Lee, Ye Jin Lim, Dong Woo Son, Eun Ji Lee, Pil Kim, Suhwan Chang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

A key element for the cost-effective development of cultured meat is a cell line culturable in serum-free conditions to reduce production costs. Heme supplementation in cultured meat mimics the original meat flavor and color. This study introduced a bacterial extract generated from Corynebacterium that was selected for high-heme expression by directed evolution. A normal porcine cell line, PK15, was used to apply the bacterial heme extract as a supplement. Consistent with prior research, we observed the cytotoxicity of PK15 to the heme extract at 10 mM or higher. However, after long-term exposure, PK15 adapted to tolerate up to 40 mM of heme. An RNA-seq analysis of these heme-adapted PK15 cells (PK15H) revealed a set of altered genes, mainly involved in cell proliferation, metabolism, and inflammation. We found that cytochrome P450, family 1, subfamily A, polypeptide 1 (CYP1A1), lactoperoxidase (LPO), and glutathione peroxidase 5 (GPX5) were upregulated in the PK15H heme dose dependently. When we reduced serum serially from 2% to serum free, we derived the PK15H subpopulation that was transiently maintained with 5–10 mM heme extract. Altogether, our study reports a porcine cell culturable in high-heme media that can be maintained in serum-free conditions and proposes a marker gene that plays a critical role in this adaptation process.

Original languageEnglish
Article number5824
JournalInternational Journal of Molecular Sciences
Volume25
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 by the authors.

Keywords

  • cultured meat
  • cytochrome P450
  • family 1
  • glutathione peroxidase 5 (GPX5)
  • heme
  • lactoperoxidase (LPO)
  • polypeptide 1 (CYP1A1)
  • porcine cell
  • serum free
  • subfamily A

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