They manage to create meatballs with DNA from extinct mammoths in a laboratory

() — Remains of woolly mammoths, with their skin and tissues intact, are still periodically found in the arctic permafrost. These discoveries have allowed scientists to sequence the mammoth genome and learn intriguing details about the lives of these extinct Ice Age giants.

Now, some of that information will be used to grow something resembling mammoth meat in the lab.

wow, an Australian meat-farming company created what it describes as a mammoth meat dumpling. The aim of the project, according to the company, is to draw attention to the potential of cultured meat to make eating habits more respectful of the planet. This Tuesday, the meatball will become part of the collection of the Rijksmuseum Boerhaavemuseum of science and medicine in the Netherlands.

“We have to start rethinking how we source our food. My biggest hope for this project is … that a lot more people around the world start hearing about cultured meat,” said James Ryall, Vow’s chief scientific officer.

An Australian company created meatballs in the lab with mammoth DNA. Credit: Vow

Create “mammoth meat”

The meatballs are not intended for human consumption. Even calling this creation mammoth meat is a bit of a stretch. It’s more like lab lamb mixed with a small amount of mammoth DNA.

The scientists working on the project did not have access to a frozen cache of mammoth tissue on which to base their efforts. Instead, they zeroed in on a protein found in mammals called myoglobin, which gives meat its texture, color and flavor, and identified the DNA sequence of the mammoth version in a publicly available genomic database.

They filled in the gaps in the mammoth myoglobin DNA sequence using information from the genome of an African elephant. The scientists inserted the synthesized gene into a sheep muscle cell, which was then grown in a laboratory.

The team was eventually able to produce around 400 grams of mammoth meat.

“From a genomic point of view, just one gene among all the other genes in sheep is gigantic,” said Ernst Wolvetang, a professor and senior group leader at the Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at the University of Queensland, who was part of of the project. “It’s a 25,000 gene.”

Ryall said that mammoth myoglobin changed the physical appearance of sheep muscle cells. Although our Stone Age ancestors hunted and presumably feasted on mammoths, both Ryall and Wolvetang said they hadn’t tried the meatballs.

“Normally, we test our products and play with them. But we’re hesitant to try and test right away because we’re talking about a protein that hasn’t been around for 5,000 years. I have no idea what the potential allergenicity of this particular protein might be,” Ryall said.

“That’s one of the reasons we don’t offer this as a product. It will not go on sale because we have no idea about the safety profile of this particular product,” he added.

cultivated vs. the real

Proponents hope that cultured meat will reduce the need to slaughter animals for food and help combat the climate crisis. The alimentary system is responsible for approximately one third of global greenhouse gas emissionsmost of which come from animal agriculture.

Vow hopes to soon get regulatory approval in Singapore, the first country to approve cultured meat, to sell the lab-made quail meat it developed. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDAfor its acronym in English) says that laboratory-grown chicken is fine for human consumption.

The mammoth DNA was inserted into sheep cells, which were then grown in a laboratory. (Credit: Vow)

The carcasses of mammoths, which went extinct around 5,000 years ago, were found so well preserved in the permafrost that they still had blood in the veins.

Love Dalén, a professor of evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University’s Center for Paleogenetics who sequenced the world’s oldest mammoth DNA, knows what mammoth meat really tastes like.

During a field trip to the Yana River in Siberia in 2012, Dalén said she tasted a small piece of frozen meat taken from the partial carcass of a baby mammoth. While he said he couldn’t see much scientific value in the meatball project, if it ever came out, Dalén said he would definitely try one.

“I would definitely love to try this!” he said. “It can’t taste worse than real mammoth meat.”