Project description
Spore-free mushrooms for safer, more sustainable farming
Mushrooms are one of the world’s most valuable crops. They are nutritious, profitable, and key to sustainable food production. However, billions of airborne spores released during harvesting can trigger allergies and respiratory issues in workers, contaminate growing rooms, and reduce overall crop quality. The ERC-funded SPORELESS project aims to develop spore-free oyster mushrooms that maintain the same look, taste, and texture as regular varieties. Using a method that introduces no foreign DNA, the mushrooms remain non-GMO. This simple, low-cost innovation promises cleaner air, healthier workers, and higher-quality harvests, marking a major step toward a safer and more sustainable mushroom industry.
Objective
In our previous ERC project we identified a broad panel of fungal genes that are associated with spore formation, one of the largest problems in industry-scale crop mushroom production. The mushroom market intensely seeks sporeless strains, however, existing ones are used by a small fraction of growers, because, in addition to sporelessness, they show unwanted morphological defects, which reduce crop quality. In preliminary experiments, we demonstrated that CRISPR-based targeting of novel genes we identified can generate sporeless strains in two model mushroom species, without unwanted side effects. In this project, we set out to demonstrate the utility of this gene panel in converting industrial oyster mushroom (Pleurotus spp) strains into sporeless varieties, without the genomic incorporation of exogenous DNA. This will give us a simple and low cost lab-to-farm pipeline for developing novel industrial mushroom strains using a technology that is widely accepted as non-GMO in several regions worldwide. We plan to commercialize such strains through our existing and novel industrial partners in the US, Australia, Japan and potentially several more countries. Overall, this project might provide a lasting solution to a major problem in a well-defined field of biotechnology, that can be used in the ever growing number of countries where marker-free genetic engineering is accepted.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics DNA
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-POC
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
6726 Szeged
Hungary
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.