Efficient Myogenic/Adipogenic Transdifferentiation of Bovine Fibroblasts in a 3D Bioprinting System for Steak‐Type Cultured Meat Production

• Published in: Advanced science Vol. 9; no. 31; pp. e2202877 - n/a
• Main Authors: Jeong, Dayi, Seo, Jeong Wook, Lee, Hong‐Gu, Jung, Woo Kyung, Park, Yong Ho, Bae, Hojae
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Weinheim John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.11.2022; John Wiley and Sons Inc; Wiley
• Subjects: 3-D printers; 3D bioprinting; Adipocytes; Biocompatibility; biofabrication; bioinks; Cell culture; Cell growth; Climate change; Cultured meat; Fibroblasts; Hydrogels; Myogenesis; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; Spectrum analysis; Stem cells; Tissue engineering; United States > US; South Korea
• ISSN: 2198-3844; 2198-3844
• DOI: 10.1002/advs.202202877

The interest in cultured meat is increasing because of the problems with conventional livestock industry. Recently, many studies related to cultured meat have been conducted, but producing large‐sized cultured meat remains a challenge. It is aimed to introduce 3D bioprinting for producing large cell aggregates for cultured meat production. A hydrogel scaffold is produced at the centimeter scale using a bioink consisting of photocrosslinkable materials for digital light processing‐based (DLP) printing, which has high printing accuracy and can produce geometrically complex structures. The light exposure time for hydrogel photopolymerization by DLP bioprinting is optimized based on photorheometry and cell viability assays. Naturally immortalized bovine embryonic fibroblast cells transformed with MyoD and PPARγ2 instead of primary cells are used as the latter have difficulties in maintaining stemness and are associated with animal ethics issues. The cells are mixed into the hydrogel for printing. Myogenesis and adipogenesis are induced simply by changing the medium after printing. Scaffolds are obtained successfully with living cells and large microchannels. The cooked cultured meat maintains its size and shape upon cutting. The overall dimensions are 3.43 cm × 5.53 cm × 0.96 cm. This study provides proof‐of‐concept for producing 3D cultured meat using bioinks. 3D‐bioprinted steak‐type cultured meat production process using digital light processing‐based printing is suitable for solving the scalability challenges. The method allows not only using a simple mixture of muscle and fat cells but also controlling the muscle‐to‐fat ratio.