Enzymatic degradation and ageing of additively manufactured soy-based scaffolds for cell-cultured meat

Abstract

The production of animal-derived food using cultured whole-muscle meats requires scaffolding, but current scaffold manufacturing technologies are not suitable for achieving scalable and cost-effective production required to compete with traditional animal agriculture. To address this, vat polymerization using a renewable soy-based resin is proposed as an emerging material-process combination capable of economies of scale. However, the thermo-mechanical behavior of edible photocured materials under physiologically relevant conditions needs to be understood, particularly enzymatic degradation and aging under long-term exposure in bioreactors. Results demonstrated that enzymatic hydrolysis shifted the glass transition temperature below standard bioreactor operating temperatures and stabilized after seven days.