Does cultured beef have fewer allergens?

As cultured meat becomes commercialised in many countries, including Australia, consumers want to know more about its health impacts compared to conventional animal meat.

Researchers publishing in ACS’s Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry conducted an initial food safety study to identify potential allergens in cultured beef cells with mixed results. Cultured cells contained relatively fewer traditional protein allergens than regular steak, but provoked stronger immune reactions in blood samples from people with an acquired meat allergy.

“This study demonstrates that meat grown from cells can change in ways that matter for food allergies,” said Renwick Dobson, a corresponding author of the research. “Our results show why food safety assessments for cultivated meat need to look carefully at allergy-related proteins, rather than assuming they behave the same as those in conventional meat.”

As cultivated muscle cells grow, they produce different amounts of various proteins compared to muscle that develops in live animals. For example, a previous study found that cultivated fish cells contained fewer proteins linked to severe allergies than conventional seafood. However, similar information about allergens in other cultivated meat, such as beef, isn’t available. The research team led by Laura Domigan and Dobson therefore compared the protein composition and allergenic potential of cultured beef cells to steak.

The researchers used male cow muscle cells, cultured them following established protocols for varying lengths of time, and compared the protein profile to that of a regular beef steak. Cultured muscle cells had similar protein compositions as one another, despite different lengths of time in culture, but they differed significantly from the steak. Most of the identified allergenic proteins were at similar or lower levels in the cells compared to regular beef, except for three proteins. These proteins aren’t classified as meat allergens by the World Health Organization, but they react with immunoglobulin E (IgE) and could produce immune responses or allergic reactions in some people.

Other experiments using blood samples from a small number of individuals with meat allergies indicated lower IgE binding to both undigested and digested cultured cells compared to regular steak, consistent with the different levels of allergen-related proteins. In contrast, the cultured beef cells triggered strong reactivity to human IgE in blood samples from two alpha-gal-sensitive individuals. The researchers say that this could be because there are more alpha-gal-modified proteins in the cultured cells.

These findings indicate cultured beef cells show lower allergy-related hazard relative to classic beef allergens but higher allergy-related hazard relative to alpha-gal-associated responses. The team’s next step is to expand tests to the final cultivated meat products.

“The development of cultivated meats will require coordinated efforts between scientific, regulatory and clinical teams to deliver products that are not only safe and sustainable but also accepted and trusted by the public,” Dobson concluded. “Only through this ongoing collaboration can cultivated meat achieve its promise as a viable, responsible and widely accepted alternative to conventional meat.”

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