Challenges, process technologies, and potential synthetic biology opportunities for plant-based meat production

Plant-based meat can alleviate the pressure on resources, environment, health, ethics and other aspects brought by the meat production process. However, there is a gap between plant-based meat and real meat in several aspects, including appearance, texture, flavor, nutrition, which needs to explore novel methods to make improvement. In this review, firstly, we discussed the major challenges in the development of plant-based meat products, and then analyzed the current process technologies about plant-based meat products in the field of texture simulation, nutrition enhancement and flavor improvement. Finally, the construction of key ingredients (e.g., enzyme and functional food additives) for plant-based meat processing based on synthetic biology was discussed. This review highlights that synthetic biology has potential to address challenges in the preparation of plant-based meat with high-quality and sensory acceptable.