Tissue Engineering for Clean Meat Production

Increasing public awareness of foodborne illnesses, factory farming and the ecological footprint of the meat industry, has generated the need for animal-free meat alternatives. In the last decade, scientists have begun to leverage the knowledge and tools accumulated in the fields of stem cells and tissue engineering towards the development of cell-based meat (i.e., clean meat). In tissue engineering, the physical and biochemical features of the native tissue can be mimicked; cells and biomaterials are integrated under suitable culture conditions to form mature tissues. More specifically, in skeletal muscle tissue engineering, a plurality of cell types can be co-cultured on a 3D scaffold to generate muscle fibers, blood vessels and a dense extracellular matrix (ECM). This review focuses on tissue engineering of skeletal muscle and the adjustments needed for clean meat development. We discuss the skeletal muscle structure and composition, and elaborate on cell types from farm animals that have the potential to recapitulate the muscle ECM, blood vessels, muscle fibers and fat deposits. We also review relevant biomaterials, primarily for fabricating scaffolds that can mimic the intramuscular connective tissues, as well as gene expression studies on the biological pathways that influence meat quality.