{"title":"Life cycle assessment of Beefy-9 and Beefy-R serum-free culture media for cell-cultivated beef production","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.spc.2024.07.023","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The sustainable production of cell-cultivated meat requires the use of environmentally friendly nutrients. Culture media, which provides the necessary nutrients for cell proliferation and differentiation is a major contributor to the environmental impacts of cultivated meat production. Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is problematic due to animal sourcing, ethical concerns, and high cost. Beefy-R and Beefy-9 are experimentally validated, serum-free cell culture media designed for bovine myoblast culture. While both formulations include basal media, ascorbic acid, sodium selenite, recombinant proteins, and growth factors, Beefy-9 and Beefy-R contain recombinant albumin and rapeseed protein isolates (RPI) to replace FBS, respectively. While these culture media do not include animal-sourced components, their environmental impacts have not yet been investigated. In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to estimate the environmental burdens of Beefy-9 and Beefy-R culture media production and identify hotspots for optimization. Uncertainty was assessed through sensitivity and scenario analyses, as well as Monte Carlo simulation. Our results demonstrate that Beefy-R has significantly lower environmental impacts compared to Beefy-9 in 13 out of 18 evaluated impact categories. For instance, the global warming potential (GWP) of Beefy-R was almost five times lower when compared against that of Beefy-9 production. In Beefy-R, despite the absence of recombinant albumin, recombinant proteins and growth factors were hotspots, accounting for 41 %, 5.9 %, and 12 % of GWP, land use, and water consumption impacts, respectively. This study confirms that RPI can be a more sustainable substitute for recombinant albumin in bovine myoblast serum-free media formulations. Additional research is required to identify low-impact alternatives for other recombinant proteins and growth factors in culture media.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48619,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Production and Consumption","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":10.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Sustainable Production and Consumption","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352550924002161","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The sustainable production of cell-cultivated meat requires the use of environmentally friendly nutrients. Culture media, which provides the necessary nutrients for cell proliferation and differentiation is a major contributor to the environmental impacts of cultivated meat production. Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is problematic due to animal sourcing, ethical concerns, and high cost. Beefy-R and Beefy-9 are experimentally validated, serum-free cell culture media designed for bovine myoblast culture. While both formulations include basal media, ascorbic acid, sodium selenite, recombinant proteins, and growth factors, Beefy-9 and Beefy-R contain recombinant albumin and rapeseed protein isolates (RPI) to replace FBS, respectively. While these culture media do not include animal-sourced components, their environmental impacts have not yet been investigated. In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to estimate the environmental burdens of Beefy-9 and Beefy-R culture media production and identify hotspots for optimization. Uncertainty was assessed through sensitivity and scenario analyses, as well as Monte Carlo simulation. Our results demonstrate that Beefy-R has significantly lower environmental impacts compared to Beefy-9 in 13 out of 18 evaluated impact categories. For instance, the global warming potential (GWP) of Beefy-R was almost five times lower when compared against that of Beefy-9 production. In Beefy-R, despite the absence of recombinant albumin, recombinant proteins and growth factors were hotspots, accounting for 41 %, 5.9 %, and 12 % of GWP, land use, and water consumption impacts, respectively. This study confirms that RPI can be a more sustainable substitute for recombinant albumin in bovine myoblast serum-free media formulations. Additional research is required to identify low-impact alternatives for other recombinant proteins and growth factors in culture media.
期刊介绍:
Sustainable production and consumption refers to the production and utilization of goods and services in a way that benefits society, is economically viable, and has minimal environmental impact throughout its entire lifespan. Our journal is dedicated to publishing top-notch interdisciplinary research and practical studies in this emerging field. We take a distinctive approach by examining the interplay between technology, consumption patterns, and policy to identify sustainable solutions for both production and consumption systems.