The roles of growth factors and hormones in the regulation of muscle satellite cells for cultured meat production

Abstract

Cultured meat is a potential sustainable food generated by the in vitro myogenesis of muscle satellite (stem) cells (MSCs). The self-renewal and differentiation properties of MSCs are of primary interest for cultured meat production. MSC proliferation and differentiation are influenced by a variety of growth factors such as insulin-like growth factors (IGF-1 and IGF-2), transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β), fibroblast growth factors (FGF-2 and FGF-21), platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and by hormones like insulin, testosterone, glucocorticoids, and thyroid hormones. In this review, we investigated the roles of growth factors and hormones during cultured meat production because these factors provide signals for MSC growth and structural stability. The aim of this article is to provide the important idea about different growth factors such as FGF (enhance the cell proliferation and differentiation), IGF-1 (increase the number of myoblasts), PDGF (myoblast proliferation), TGF-β1 (muscle repair) and hormones such as insulin (cell survival and growth), testosterone (muscle fiber size), dexamethasone (myoblast proliferation and differentiation), and thyroid hormones (amount and diameter of muscle fibers and determine the usual pattern of fiber distributions) as media components during myogenesis for cultured meat production.

Keywords: Cultured meat; Growth factors; Hormones; Muscle satellite cells; Myogenesis.

Fig. 1.. Cultured meat production based on myogenesis.

MSC isolated from selected animals through biopsy or from animal tissues have different proliferation and differentiation properties. The roles of different growth and muscle regulatory factors during myogenesis are also included in the figure. FGF2, HGF, and IGF-1 enhance cell proliferation, and FGF21 aids myotube formation. FGF, fibroblast growth factor; HGF, hepatocyte growth factor; IGF, insulin-like growth factors; MSC, muscle satellite (stem) cell.