Recent advances in bioengineered scaffold for in vitro meat production

Abstract

In vitro meat production via stem cell technology and tissue engineering provides hypothetically elevated resource efficiency which involves the differentiation of muscle cells from pluripotent stem cells. By applying the tissue engineering technique, muscle cells are cultivated and grown onto a scaffold, resulting in the development of muscle tissue. The studies related to in vitro meat production are advancing with a seamless pace, and scientists are trying to develop various approaches to mimic the natural meat. The formulation and fabrication of biodegradable and cost-effective edible scaffold is the key to the successful development of downstream culture and meat production. Non-mammalian biopolymers such as gelatin and alginate or plant-derived proteins namely soy protein and decellularized leaves have been suggested as potential scaffold materials for in vitro meat production. Thus, this article is aimed to furnish recent updates on bioengineered scaffolds, covering their formulation, fabrication, features, and the mode of utilization.

Keywords: Biopolymers; In vitro meat; Plant proteins; Scaffold; Tissue engineering.

Fig. 1

Overview of in vitro meat production

Fig. 2

Major components of muscle extracellular matrix

Fig. 3

Recent studies on generation of edible scaffold for in vitro meat production using different biomaterials. (a–b’”) and (c–d”’) Scaffold made up of biopolymers including gelatin, alginate, agarose, and plasticizer. Adapted under the terms of creative common (CC) BY license (Enrione et al. , Orellana et al. 2020). (e–f’) Decellularized spinach leaf. Adapted with permission (Jones et al. 2021) Copyright Elsevier 2022

Fig. 4

Biomaterials used for scaffold formation and their associated advantages