CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 515Bioeconomy and Sustainability DevelopmentMicrobial Metabolic Engineering and BioproductionFungal and yeast genetics research

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 125 of the 155 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Growing a circular economy with fungal biotechnology: a white paper

Open access
Meyer, Vera, Basenko, Evelina Y., Benz, J. Philipp, Braus, Gerhard H., Caddick, Mark X., Csukai, Michael, de Vries, Ronald P., Endy, Drew, Frisvad, Jens C., Gunde-Cimerman, Nina, Haarmann, Thomas, Hadar, Yitzhak, Hansen, Kim, Johnson, Robert I., Keller, Nancy P., Kraševec, Nada, Mortensen, Uffe H., Perez, Rolando, Ram, Arthur F. J., Record, Eric, Ross, Phil, Shapaval, Volha, Steiniger, Charlotte, van den Brink, Hans, van Munster, Jolanda, Yarden, Oded, Wösten, Han A. B.·2020·Fungal Biology and Biotechnology
DOI 10.1186/s40694-020-00095-zPMC PMC7140391
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Fungi have the ability to transform organic materials into a rich and diverse set of useful products and provide distinct opportunities for tackling the urgent challenges before all humans. Fungal biotechnology can advance the transition from our petroleum-based economy into a bio-based circular economy and has the ability to sustainably produce resilient sources of food, feed, chemicals, fuels, textiles, and materials for construction, automotive and transportation industries, for furniture and beyond. Fungal biotechnology offers solutions for securing, stabilizing and enhancing the food supply for a growing human population, while simultaneously lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Fungal biotechnology has, thus, the potential to make a significant contribution to climate change mitigation and meeting the United Nation’s sustainable development goals through the rational improvement of new and established fungal cell factories. The White Paper presented here is the result of the 2nd Think Tank meeting held by the EUROFUNG consortium in Berlin in October 2019. This paper highlights discussions on current opportunities and research challenges in fungal biotechnology and aims to inform scientists, educators, the general public, industrial stakeholders and policymakers about the current fungal biotech revolution.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1186/s40694-020-00095-z

Cites

125 of 125 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Figures

Fig. 1 The fungal life cycle
Fig. 1 The fungal life cycleCC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 2 Industries profiting from the metabolic capacities of filamentous fungi
Fig. 2 Industries profiting from the metabolic capacities of filamentous fungiCC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 3 Unique textural attributes of Quorn™. Electron microscopic images of protein fibres from spun soya and chicken and hyphal filaments of F. venenatum. Bar, 100 µm
Fig. 3 Unique textural attributes of Quorn™. Electron microscopic images of protein fibres from spun soya and chicken and hyphal filaments of F. venenatum. Bar, 100 µmCC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 4 The Quorn™ fermentation process. A continuous supply of medium is fed into the fermenter and the broth is harvested simultaneously. The harvested broth is heated to a temperature that destroys proteases but leaves RNAses active, allowing the RNA content of the mycelium to be reduced to less than 2%, which is a regulatory requirement. Once the broth has been heat-treated, the mycelium is spun down to form a paste, which is mixed with binders and flavouring agents before being shaped, cooked and frozen. The supernatant from the paste is currently sent for treatment as wastewater, but active research at Marlow Foods is looking into how the 1.5% solids in the waste can be recovered as a food grade co-product
Fig. 4 The Quorn™ fermentation process. A continuous supply of medium is fed into the fermenter and the broth is harvested simultaneously. The harvested broth is heated to a temperature that destroys proteases but leaves RNAses active, allowing the RNA content of the mycelium to be reduced to less than 2%, which is a regulatory requirement. Once the broth has been heat-treated, the mycelium is spun down to form a paste, which is mixed with binders and flavouring agents before being shaped, cooked and frozen. The supernatant from the paste is currently sent for treatment as wastewater, but active research at Marlow Foods is looking into how the 1.5% solids in the waste can be recovered as a food grade co-productCC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 5 Material properties that can be achieved with fungal mycelia. a Mycelium composites. b Mycelium textiles. The pictures depicted are reproduced from [45], which has been published under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Fig. 5 Material properties that can be achieved with fungal mycelia. a Mycelium composites. b Mycelium textiles. The pictures depicted are reproduced from [45], which has been published under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 6 MycoWorks’ fungal analogues for composites and leather. a Analogues for synthetic wood composites and expanded polystyrene foams. Mushrooms are very sensitive to their surroundings, and it is possible by altering subtle factors to make their tissue express a range of variably determined physical characteristics. While these materials can be grown into building components for construction and interior architectures, they can also be grown with delicately tuneable qualities. The strength, durability and biodegradable nature of mushroom-based materials suggest many ways in which fungi may be used. When the material is processed with traditional industrial wrapping and laminating equipment, it is possible to create functional materials. b Analogues for animal leather. The MycoWorks technology is able to tune fine mycelium leather to have material advantages similar to animal skin, becoming supple, elastic and strong, with excellent return, drape, compression and insulation. This mycelium leather, launched in early 2020 as Reishi™, has been designed as a drop-in material for existing leather processing machine tools, where it can be cured, finished and manufactured using well-honed industrial techniques and formulas
Fig. 6 MycoWorks’ fungal analogues for composites and leather. a Analogues for synthetic wood composites and expanded polystyrene foams. Mushrooms are very sensitive to their surroundings, and it is possible by altering subtle factors to make their tissue express a range of variably determined physical characteristics. While these materials can be grown into building components for construction and interior architectures, they can also be grown with delicately tuneable qualities. The strength, durability and biodegradable nature of mushroom-based materials suggest many ways in which fungi may be used. When the material is processed with traditional industrial wrapping and laminating equipment, it is possible to create functional materials. b Analogues for animal leather. The MycoWorks technology is able to tune fine mycelium leather to have material advantages similar to animal skin, becoming supple, elastic and strong, with excellent return, drape, compression and insulation. This mycelium leather, launched in early 2020 as Reishi™, has been designed as a drop-in material for existing leather processing machine tools, where it can be cured, finished and manufactured using well-honed industrial techniques and formulasCC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 7 From science to market—the fungicide discovery and approval pipeline. Historically, the biological activity profile (fungicidal potency and spectrum) was used to filter hit compounds to lead molecules. Nowadays, regulatory requirements regarding human and ecotoxicological safety mean that proxy assays for these regulatory requirements are now utilised as early in the discovery pipeline as possible as part of the selection criteria for compound progression. It will typically take 10–12 years for a new fungicide to pass through the various stages of research (lead generation, early and late lead evaluation, optimisation and candidate confirmation) before promotion into evaluation and, finally, product development. After reaching the market, a significant amount of investment is still required for product lifecycle management (e.g. product monitoring feeds into improvements in formulation)
Fig. 7 From science to market—the fungicide discovery and approval pipeline. Historically, the biological activity profile (fungicidal potency and spectrum) was used to filter hit compounds to lead molecules. Nowadays, regulatory requirements regarding human and ecotoxicological safety mean that proxy assays for these regulatory requirements are now utilised as early in the discovery pipeline as possible as part of the selection criteria for compound progression. It will typically take 10–12 years for a new fungicide to pass through the various stages of research (lead generation, early and late lead evaluation, optimisation and candidate confirmation) before promotion into evaluation and, finally, product development. After reaching the market, a significant amount of investment is still required for product lifecycle management (e.g. product monitoring feeds into improvements in formulation)CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 8 Fungal biotechnology has the potential to make a significant contribution meeting 10 out of 17 United Nation’s sustainable development goals through the rational improvement of filamentous fungal cell factories
Fig. 8 Fungal biotechnology has the potential to make a significant contribution meeting 10 out of 17 United Nation’s sustainable development goals through the rational improvement of filamentous fungal cell factoriesCC BY · PubMed Central

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 9

  1. Ereky K. Biotechnologie der Fleisch-, Fett-, und Milcherzeugung im landwirtschaftlichen Grossbetriebe: für naturwissenschaftlich gebildete Landwirte verfasst. Berlin: Paul Parey; 1919.
  2. Moore D, Chiu SW. Fungal products as food. In: Pointing SB, Hyde KD, editors. Bio-exploitation of filamentous fungi., Fungal Diversity Research Series 6London: Fungal Diversity Press; 2001. p. 223–51.
  3. WBAE/WBW: Scientific Advisory Board on Agricultural Policy, Food and Consumer Health Protection (WBAE) and on Forest Policy (WBW) at the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL). In: (2016) Climate change mitigation in agriculture and forestry and in the downstream sectors of food and timber use. Executive Summary. Berlin; 2016. https://doi.org/10.12767/buel.v1i1.175.g323. · DOI
  4. Forest Europe. State of Europe’s Forests 2015. Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe. Forest Europe Liaison Unit Madrid. 2015. https://foresteurope.org/state-europes-forests-2015-report/. Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
  5. Hetemäki L, editor. Future of the European forest-based sector: structural changes towards bioeconomy. European Forest Institute: Joensuu; 2014.
  6. Gupta A, Xu W, Jaiswal P, Taylor C, Regala J. Domain informational vocabulary extraction experiences with publication pipeline integration and ontology curation. In: Proceedings of the 9th international conference on biological ontology (ICBO 2018), Corvallis, Oregon, USA. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2285/ICBO_2018_paper_43.pdf.
  7. Schmideder S, Barthel L, Müller H, Meyer V, Briesen H. From three-dimensional morphology to effective diffusivity in filamentous fungal pellets. Biotechnol Bioeng. 2019;116:3360–71. https://doi.org/10.1002/bit.27166. · DOI
  8. Weiss, B. The SEMI international standards program—history, successes and lessons learned to address compound semiconductor manufacturing challenges. In: 2006 International Conference on Compound Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (CS MANTECH, 2006). p. 55–58. https://csmantech.org/OldSite/Digests/2006/2006%20Digests/4A.pdf. Accessed 5 Dec 2019.
  9. Prestemon JP, Wear DN, Foster MO. The global position of the U.S. forest products industry. US Dep Agric For Serv South Res Stn e-General Tech Rep. SRS-204, 2015:1–24. · DOI

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 515

Metadata

Authors
Meyer, V., Basenko, E. Y., Benz, J. P., Braus, G. H., Caddick, M. X., Csukai, M., de Vries, R. P., Endy, D., Frisvad, J. C., Gunde-Cimerman, N., Haarmann, T., Hadar, Y., Hansen, K., Johnson, R. I., Keller, N. P., Kraševec, N., Mortensen, U. H., Perez, R., Ram, A. F. J., Record, E., Ross, P., Shapaval, V., Steiniger, C., van den Brink, H., van Munster, J., Yarden, O., & Wösten, H. A. B.
Affiliations
  • Technische Universität Berlin (DE)
  • University of Liverpool (GB)
  • Technical University of Munich (DE)
  • University of Göttingen (DE)
  • Syngenta (United Kingdom) (GB)
  • Utrecht University (NL)
  • Stanford University (US)
  • Technical University of Denmark (DK)
  • ABEnzymes (Germany) (DE)
  • Hebrew University of Jerusalem (IL)
  • Novozymes (Denmark) (DK)
  • University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
  • National Institute of Chemistry (SI)
  • Leiden University (NL)
  • Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NO)
  • Chr. Hansen (Denmark) (DK)
  • University of Manchester (GB)
Corresponding author
Meyer, Vera
ORCID
Venue
Fungal Biology and Biotechnology
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2020-04-02
Volume
7
Issue
1
Pages
5-5
ISSN
2054-3085 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1186/s40694-020-00095-z
PMC
PMC7140391
OpenAlex
W3015382627
Cited by
515
References
155
Citations by year
2026: 61 · 2025: 90 · 2024: 97 · 2023: 107 · 2022: 74 · 2021: 65 · 2020: 19
FWCI
11.53
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Fungal Biology and Biotechnology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • KNAW research portal (Royal Academy of Art and Sciences (KNAW)) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • HAL (submittedVersion)
  • Leiden Repository (Leiden University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • GoeScholar The Publication Server of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • mediaTUM – the media and publications repository of the Technical University Munich (Technical University Munich) (submittedVersion)
  • NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Technical University of Denmark, DTU Orbit (Technical University of Denmark, DTU) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/P011462/1)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › General Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Bioeconomy and Sustainability Development
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Microbial Metabolic Engineering and Bioproduction
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Fungal and yeast genetics research
Keywords
fungal biotechnology, circular economy, bioeconomy, fungal cell factories, biofuels, bio-based chemicals, bio-based materials, food security, climate change mitigation, greenhouse gas emissions reduction, Sustainable Development Goals

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review