Reprocessing seafood waste: challenge to develop aquatic clean meat from fish cells

Production of small-scale laboratory-grown cell-based fish meat from Asian seabass muscle and fin cell lines

Aquaculture is essential to satisfying the world's increasing demand for seafood. Likewise, overfishing is becoming more common across the world, inflicting tremendous damage to the marine environment. There is a critical need for protecting sustainable fishing resources to fulfil the increasing demand for seafood. The current work focuses on the cells derived from Asian seabass muscle (SBM) and Asian seabass fin (SBF) for producing cell-based fish meat. SBM and SBF cells were seeded separately in the TubeSpin bioreactor and placed on a 3D orbital rocker. Cell sheets formed on the TubeSpin were detached and formed spheroid-like structures. These structures aggregated and formed visible tissue-like structures on 45 d of culture. Immunotyping results revealed that the presence of myosin in the cells of muscle and fin tissue, and indicating that these cells might have originated from myoblasts. The origin of cultured tissue from SBM and SBF cell lines was confirmed by amplification and sequencing of the L. calcarifer specific mitochondrial larger subunit rRNA gene. Additionally, these cells could be cultivated in multilayered forms that were appropriate for large-scale production. This approach provides a new method for the production of cell-based, laboratory-grown meat from the Asian seabass muscle and fin cell lines.

Can cell-cultured meat from stem cells pave the way for sustainable alternative protein?

As the global population grows, the demand for food and animal-derived products rises significantly, posing a notable challenge to the progress of society in general. Alternative protein production may adequately address such a challenge, and cell-based meat production emerges as a promising solution. This review investigates methodologies for in vitro myogenesis and adipogenesis from stem cells (adult, embryonic, or induced pluripotent stem cells - iPSCs) across different animal species, as well as the remaining challenges for scalability, the possibility of genetic modification, along with safety concerns regarding the commercialization of cell-cultured meat. Regarding such complexities, interdisciplinary approaches will be vital for assessing the potential of cell-cultured meat as a sustainable protein source, mimicking the sensory and nutritional attributes of conventional livestock meat whilst meeting the demands of a growing global population while mitigating environmental impacts.

A spontaneously immortalized muscle stem cell line (EfMS) from brown-marbled grouper for cell-cultured fish meat production

Lacking of suitable fish muscle stem cell line has greatly hindered the fabrication of cell-cultured fish meat. Here, we established and characterized a spontaneously immortalized marine fish muscle stem cell line (EfMS) from brown-marbled grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus), which could actively proliferate with good genetic stability and well maintain the stemness of myogenesis potential for over 50 passages. Taurine was found to be able to serve as a substitute of fish muscle extract in maintaining stemness. The EfMS cells could be efficiently induced to myogenic differentiation or adipogenic trans-differentiation in both 2D and 3D culture systems. Using edible 3D microcarriers, we produced 0.65 g fat-free and 1.47 g fat-containing cell-cultured fish meat in 8 days. The scaffold-free cell-cultured fish meat exhibited a much higher content of flavory amino acids than natural fish. Together, EfMS cell line can serve as an ideal seed cell line for the production of cell-cultured fish meat.

Fish Cell Spheroids, a Promising In Vitro Model to Mimic In Vivo Research: A Review

In vitro cell culture systems serve as instrumental platforms for probing biological phenomena and elucidating intricate cellular mechanisms. These systems afford researchers the opportunity to scrutinize cellular responses within a regulated environment, thereby circumventing the ethical and logistical challenges associated with in vivo experimentation. Three-dimensional (3D) cell cultures have emerged as a viable alternative to mimic in vivo environments. Within this context, spheroids are recognized as one of the most straightforward and efficacious models, presenting a promising substitute for conventional monolayer cultures. The application of 3D cultures of fish cells remains limited, focusing mainly on physiological and morphological characterization studies. However, given the capacity of spheroids to emulate in vivo conditions, researchers are exploring diverse applications of these 3D cultures. These include eco-toxicology, immunology, drug screening, endocrinology, and metabolism studies, employing a variety of cell types such as fibroblasts, hepatocytes, embryonic cells, gonadal cells, gastrointestinal cells, and pituitary cells. This review provides a succinct overview, concentrating on the most frequently employed methods for generating fish cell spheroids and their applications to date. The aim is to compile and highlight the significant contributions of these methods to the field and their potential for future research.

Stable cytoactivity of piscine satellite cells in rice bran-gelatin hydrogel scaffold of cultured meat

In order to achieve high cell adhesion and growth efficiency on scaffolds for cultured meat, animal materials, especially gelatin, are necessary though the disadvantages of weak mechanical properties and poor stability of their hydrogel scaffolds are present during cell cultivation. Here, we use rice bran as a kind of filling and supporting materials to develop a composite scaffold with gelatin for fish cell cultivation, where rice bran is also inexpensive from high yield fibrous agricultural by-product. The rice bran (with a proportion of 1, 3, 5, 7, 10 to 3 of gelatin) could evenly distributed in the three-dimensional network composed of gelatin hydrogel. It contributed to delaying swelling and degradation rates, fixing water and improving elastic modulus. It is important that rice bran-gelatin hydrogel scaffolds (especially the hydrogel with 70 % rice bran, db) promoted piscine satellite cells (PSCs) proliferation effectively compared to the pure gelatin hydrogel, and the former could also support the differentiation of PSCs. Overall, this work showed a positive promotion to explore new source of scaffold materials like agricultural by-product for reducing the cost of cell cultured meat production.

A narrative review: 3D bioprinting of cultured muscle meat and seafood products and its potential for the food industry

The demand for meat and seafood products has been globally increasing for decades. To address the environmental, social, and economic impacts of this trend, there has been a surge in the development of three-dimensional (3D) food bioprinting technologies for lab-grown muscle food products and their analogues. This innovative approach is a sustainable solution to mitigate the environmental risks associated with climate change caused by the negative impacts of indiscriminative livestock production and industrial aquaculture. This review article explores the adoption of 3D bioprinting modalities to manufacture lab-grown muscle food products and their associated technologies, cells, and bioink formulations. Additionally, various processing techniques, governing the characteristics of bioprinted food products, nutritional compositions, and safety aspects as well as its relevant ethical and social considerations, were discussed. Although promising, further research and development is needed to meet standards and translate into several industrial areas, such as the food and renewable energy industries. In specific, optimization of animal cell culture conditions, development of serum-free media, and bioreactor design are essential to eliminate the risk factors but achieve the unique nutritional requirements and consumer acceptance. In short, the advancement of 3D bioprinting technologies holds great potential for transforming the food industry, but achieving widespread adoption will require continued innovation, rigorous research, and adherence to ethical standards to ensure safety, nutritional quality, and consumer acceptance.

High oxidative stability of a complex fish liver oil nano-capsules in response to long-term storage, and to hyperthermal and sunlight exposure

BACKGROUND

In this study, a biocompatible nano-carrying platform using chitosan (ChI) and chondroitin sulfate (ChS) was developed for the encapsulation of cobia liver oil (CBLO) to prevent its oxidation and improve its absorption. An ionic gelation method was applied to encapsulate CBLO with different weight ratios (from 1.0 to 1.5) to obtain ChS-ChI nano-capsules (ChS-ChI@CBLO NCs).

RESULTS

Morphological observations of the nano-capsules revealed a spherical shape and diameter around 267-381 nm. The maximum loading capacity (LC) and encapsulation efficiency (EE) for ChS-ChI@CBLO NCs estimated by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and derivative thermogravimetric (DTG) analysis were 25.7% and 56.2%, respectively. The structural stability of ChS-ChI@CBLO NCs was confirmed through differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis; moreover DSC also further confirmed the oxidative stability of ChS-ChI@CBLO NCs. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectra confirmed the excellent stability of ChS-ChI@CBLO NCs against high temperature and sunlight exposure. Biocompatibility analysis also verified the non-toxicity of ChS-ChI@CBLO NCs, further indicating safety and potential application in complex-nutritional supplements.

CONCLUSION

Nano-degree of ChS-ChI@CBLO NCs has a loading capacity and encapsulation efficiency of around 16.5 ~ 25.7% and 33.4 ~ 56.2%, respectively, for encapsulation of CBLO. Characterization results also indicate that ChS-ChI@CBLO NCs display high oxidative stability against long-term, hyperthermal, and sunlight exposure. Bioassay results confirm that the ChS-ChI@CBLO NCs are safe and non-toxic. This study demonstrates that nano-capsules are also beneficial in preventing sensitive compounds from metamorphosis, and are non-toxic. These materials are suitable for use in the food and pharmaceutical industries. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.

A review: analysis of technical challenges in cultured meat production and its commercialization

The cultured meat technology has developed rapidly in recent years, but there are still many technical challenges that hinder the large-scale production and commercialization of cultured meat. Firstly, it is necessary to lay the foundation for cultured meat production by obtaining seed cells and maintaining stable cell functions. Next, technologies such as bioreactors are used to expand the scale of cell culture, and three-dimensional culture technologies such as scaffold culture or 3D printing are used to construct the three-dimensional structure of cultured meat. At the same time, it can reduce production costs by developing serum-free medium suitable for cultured meat. Finally, the edible quality of cultured meat is improved by evaluating food safety and sensory flavor, and combining ethical and consumer acceptability issues. Therefore, this review fully demonstrates the current development status and existing technical challenges of the cultured meat production technology with regard to the key points described above, in order to provide research ideas for the industrial production of cultured meat.

Programmable scaffolds with aligned porous structures for cell cultured meat

Porous scaffolds for cell cultured meat are currently limited in the food-grade material requirements, the cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation capacities, and the ignored appearance design. We proposed programmable scaffolds specially tailored for cell cultured meat. The scaffold with aligned porous structures was fabricated with the ice-templated directional freeze-drying of the food-grade collagen hydrogel. Due to the abundant tripeptide presence and well-aligned porous structures, the scaffold could not only provide sites for cell adhesion and proliferation, but also promote the oriented growth and differentiation of cells. The up-regulation of myogenic related genes, synthesis of myogenic related proteins and formation of matured myotubes furtherly proved the differentiation of cells on aligned scaffold. These characteristics would facilitate the traditional meat characteristics simulation of cell cultured meat in term of texture and microstructure. Meanwhile, patterned scaffolds were achievable as well with the help of mold-assisted ice templating, which would improve the people's interest, recognition, and acceptance of the tailored cell cultured meat. These characteristics indicate great application prospects of the proposed programmable scaffolds in cell cultured meat.

Tissue-like cultured fish fillets through a synthetic food pipeline

Tissue-like cultured meats of some livestock have successfully been established by different approaches. However, the production of a structure similar to fish fillets is still challenging. Here, we develop tissue-like cultured fish fillets by assembly of large yellow croaker muscle fibers and adipocytes with 3D-printed gel. Inhibition of Tgf-β and Notch signals significantly promoted myogenic differentiation of piscine satellite cells (PSCs). The mixture of fish gelatin and sodium alginate combined with a p53 inhibitor and a Yap activator supported PSC viability and proliferation. Based on the texture of fish muscle tissue, a 3D scaffold was constructed by gelatin-based gel mixed with PSCs. After proliferation and differentiation, the muscle scaffold was filled with cultured piscine adipocytes. Finally, tissue-like fish fillets with 20 × 12 × 4 mm were formed, consisting of 5.67 × 10⁷ muscles and 4.02 × 10⁷ adipocytes. The biomanufacture of tissue-like cultured fish fillet here could be a promising technology to customize meat production with high fidelity.

Differentiation and Maturation of Muscle and Fat Cells in Cultivated Seafood: Lessons from Developmental Biology

Cultivated meat, also known as cultured or cell-based meat, is meat produced directly from cultured animal cells rather than from a whole animal. Cultivated meat and seafood have been proposed as a means of mitigating the substantial harms associated with current production methods, including damage to the environment, antibiotic resistance, food security challenges, poor animal welfare, and-in the case of seafood-overfishing and ecological damage associated with fishing and aquaculture. Because biomedical tissue engineering research, from which cultivated meat draws a great deal of inspiration, has thus far been conducted almost exclusively in mammals, cultivated seafood suffers from a lack of established protocols for producing complex tissues in vitro. At the same time, fish such as the zebrafish Danio rerio have been widely used as model organisms in developmental biology. Therefore, many of the mechanisms and signaling pathways involved in the formation of muscle, fat, and other relevant tissue are relatively well understood for this species. The same processes are understood to a lesser degree in aquatic invertebrates. This review discusses the differentiation and maturation of meat-relevant cell types in aquatic species and makes recommendations for future research aimed at recapitulating these processes to produce cultivated fish and shellfish.

Review of the Current Research on Fetal Bovine Serum and the Development of Cultured Meat

The purpose of this review is to summarize studies that investigate blood and the main components of fetal bovine serum (FBS) in vertebrates, including major livestock, and review the current research on commercializing cultured meat. Detailed research on FBS is still lacking; however, some studies have shown that FBS consists of proteins, carbohydrates, growth factors, cytokines, fats, vitamins, minerals, hormones, non-protein nitrogen, and inorganic compounds. However, there are few studies on how the composition of FBS differs from blood or serum composition in adult animals, which is probably one of the main reasons for not successfully replacing FBS. Moreover, recent studies on the development of FBS replacers and serum-free media have shown that it is difficult to conclude whether FBS has been completely replaced or serum-free media have been developed successfully. Our review of the industrialization of cultured meat reveals that many basic studies on the development of cultured meat have been conducted, but it is assumed that the study to reduce or replace ingredients derived from fetuses such as FBS has not yet been actively developed. Therefore, developing inexpensive and edible media is necessary for the successful industrialization of cultured meat.

Bioengineered Lab-Grown Meat-like Constructs through 3D Bioprinting of Antioxidative Protein Hydrolysates

Lab-grown bovine meat analogues are emerging alternatives to animal sacrifices for cultured meat production. The most challenging aspect of the production process is the rapid proliferation of cells and establishment of the desired 3D structure for mass production. In this study, we developed a direct ink writing-based 3D-bioprinted meat culture platform composed of 6% (w/v) alginate and 4% (w/v) gelatin (Alg/Gel)-based hydrogel scaffolds supplemented with naturally derived protein hydrolysates (PHs; 10%) from highly nutritive plants (soybean, pigeon pea, and wheat), and some selected edible insects (beetles, crickets, and mealworms) on in vitro proliferation of bovine myosatellite cells (bMSCs) extracted from fresh meat samples. The developed bioink exhibited excellent shear-thinning behavior (n < 1) and mechanical stability during 3D bioprinting. Commercial proteases (Alcalase, Neutrase, and Flavourzyme) were used for protein hydrolysis. The resulting hydrolysates exhibited lower-molecular-weight bands (12-50 kDa) than those of crude isolates (55-160 kDa), as determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The degree of hydrolysis was higher in the presence of Alcalase for both plant (34%) and insect (62%) PHs than other enzymes. The 3D-printed hydrogel scaffolds displayed excellent bioactivity and stability after 7 days of incubation. The developed prototype structure (pepperoni meat, 20 × 20 × 5 mm) provided a highly stable, nutritious, and mechanically strong structure that supported the rapid proliferation of myoblasts in a low-serum environment during the entire culture period. The 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging assay enhanced the free radical reduction of Alcalase- and Neutrase-treated PHs. Furthermore, the bioprinted bMSCs displayed early myogenesis (desmin and Pax7) in the presence of PHs, suggesting its role in bMSC differentiation. In conclusion, we developed a 3D bioprinted and bioactive meat culture platform using Alg/Gel/PHs as a printable and edible component for the mass production of cultured meat.