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  • Perspective
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From sustainable feedstocks to microbial foods

Nature Microbiology (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Climate change-induced alterations in weather patterns, such as frequent and severe heatwaves, cold waves, droughts, floods, heavy rain and storms, are reducing crop yields and agricultural productivity. At the same time, greenhouse gases arising from food production and supply account for almost 30% of anthropogenic emissions. This vicious circle is producing a global food crisis. Sustainable food resources and production systems are needed now, and microbial foods are one possible solution. In this Perspective, we highlight the most promising technologies, and carbon and energy sources, for microbial food production.

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Fig. 1: Microbial foods from one-carbon (C1) compounds.
Fig. 2: Compositions and environmental footprints of animal, plant and microbial biomass.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science and Technology Development (project RS-2021-RD009210) from the Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea, and also by the development of platform technologies of microbial cell factories for the next-generation biorefineries project (2022M3J5A1056117) from National Research Foundation supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT, Republic of Korea.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Metabolic and Biomolecular Engineering National Research Laboratory, Systems Metabolic Engineering and Systems Healthcare Cross-Generation Collaborative Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (BK21 four), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea

    Kyeong Rok Choi, Seok Yeong Jung & Sang Yup Lee

  2. BioProcess Engineering Research Center, KAIST, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

    Kyeong Rok Choi & Sang Yup Lee

  3. BioInformatics Research Center, KAIST Institute for the BioCentury, KAIST Institute for Artificial Intelligence, KAIST, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

    Sang Yup Lee

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  1. Kyeong Rok Choi
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Contributions

K.R.C. researched data for the article and contributed to the conceptualization, writing, reviewing and editing of the article. S.Y.J. researched data for the article and contributed to the conceptualization, writing, reviewing and editing of the article. S.Y.L. contributed to the conceptualization, reviewing and editing of the article.

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Correspondence to Sang Yup Lee.

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Nature Microbiology thanks Yongjin Zhou and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Choi, K.R., Jung, S.Y. & Lee, S.Y. From sustainable feedstocks to microbial foods. Nat Microbiol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-024-01671-4

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