[Edible animal-free scaffold for cultured meat : alginate/agarose/carboxymethyl cellulose]

Cultured meat is the solution to reduce resources used in traditional meat production. It helps produce meat without killing livestock and decrease unnecessary residue. This process requires three-dimensional scaffold for the cell attachment and the formation of artificial meat including natural textures. To achieve the goal of cultured meat, the scaffold material should not be derived from animal products as well. Therefore, this study aims to investigate mechanical properties, rheology, biocompatibility and cell attachment of 2% w/v alginate, 0.8% w/v agarose and 1.5% w/v carboxymethyl cellulose hydrogel. The structures of hydrogel were printed, and the suitable printing conditions were examined. In Rheology and printability examinations, the results showed that the hydrogel has non-Newtonian fluid behavior which is suited for 3D extrusion printing technique. The hydrogel showed high printability which does not affect by the variation of distance between lines in the structure. The compressive strength experiments suggested that the mechanical properties of the hydrogel similar to pork and beef tenderness. The hydrogel showed low degradation in culture conditions. In addition, the hydrogel did not exhibit cytotoxicity and did not affect cell proliferation. However, the hydrogel required surface modification for cell attachment. Experiments with RGD modified alginate powder showed poor cell attachment to both L929 and pig muscle stem cells. On the other hand, Poly-L-ornithine coating showed better attachment for L929 cells, but not for pig muscle stem cells.