UCLA

With the global population projected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, there is a critical need for sustainable and innovative food sources. Cultured meat, an innovative and sustainable approach to food production that allows the production of meat by cultivating animal cells in vitro, exhibits the potential to circumvent the challenges associated with traditional animal agriculture. A key to the success of cultured meat is developing adipose tissue, crucial for achieving the desired taste, texture, and nutritional quality. Accelerating adipogenesis has the potential to improve production efficiency, making large-scale cultured meat manufacturing more viable and cost-effective. This study aims to identify small molecules that accelerate adipogenesis for edible fat tissue production using a high-throughput screen. Our findings identified magnolol and dicoumarol as effective natural compounds that promote lipid accumulation in differentiating mouse, rabbit, and porcine preadipocytes. These compounds have also demonstrated a synergetic effect in accelerating adipogenesis, which highlights the potential of novel treatments in effectively promoting adipocyte differentiation across various species.