Growing meat on autoclaved vegetables with biomimetic stiffness and micro-patterns

Area of Science:

• Biomaterials Engineering
• Cell Biology
• Food Science

Background:

• Cultured meat production requires edible bio-scaffolds with biomimetic properties for cell growth and tissue development.
• Existing meat-engineering technologies face challenges in scalability, cell differentiation, and tissue maturation within a single system.
• The need for efficient, cost-effective, and scalable scaffolding solutions is critical for advancing cultured meat.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel, simplified strategy for creating edible bio-scaffolds for cultured meat.
• To utilize common vegetables as a source of biomimetic scaffolds without decellularization.
• To investigate the potential of autoclaved vegetables in supporting muscle and adipose cell growth and tissue engineering.

Main Methods:

• A novel autoclaving strategy was employed to transform vegetables into edible bio-scaffolds.
• Vegetables with natural anisotropic (Chinese chive, Shiitake mushroom) and isotropic (loofah) topologies were selected.
• Autoclaving was used to adjust scaffold stiffness to mimic animal tissues and preserve cell-affinitive moieties.

Main Results:

• Autoclaved vegetables effectively supported muscle and adipose cell culture, exhibiting good cell-affinitive properties.
• Anisotropic scaffolds (Chinese chive, Shiitake mushroom) promoted scalable muscle cell expansion, alignment, and myogenesis.
• Isotropic scaffolds (loofah) enhanced adipocyte proliferation and lipid accumulation.
• Engineered muscle- and fat-on-vegetables were constructed for applications like meat stuffing and layered meat chips.

Conclusions:

• Autoclaved vegetables serve as effective, biomimetic scaffolds for cultured meat production, offering tunable stiffness and topography.
• This decellularization-free method simplifies processing, reduces costs, and is compatible with bioreactors.
• The approach holds significant potential for the scale-up application of meat analog bio-fabrication.