Centimeter-scale perfusable cultured meat with densely packed, highly aligned muscle fibers via hollow fiber bioreactor

Abstract

The development of in-vitro biofabrication methods for producing cultured meat based on animal cells has been advancing, but replicating the texture of traditional meat in centimeter-scale has been a challenge. To address this, a method using a hollow fiber bioreactor (HFB) has been developed. The HFB contains semipermeable hollow fibers that act as artificial circulatory systems to deliver nutrients and oxygen uniformly to the tissue, along with microfabricated anchors for inducing cell alignment. With active perfusion, the biofabricated centimeter-scale chick muscle tissue shows elevated levels of marker protein expression and sarcomere formation across the whole tissue, along with improved texture and flavor. In the future, further scaling up of this approach using industrial robots has the potential to transform not only the cultured meat industry but also the tissue engineering fields aiming for the formation of large-scale artificial organs.