Pure starch scaffolding with non-toxic crosslinking for cultured meat applications

Abstract

Scaffolding is a key component in the future of cultured meat and non-toxic, cost-efficient scaffolds would be significant step toward making that a reality. Most scaffolds used in tissue engineering tend to be non-edible. While an existing method has been developed to spin pure starch fibres without fillers, the method’s suitability for cultured meat applications has not yet been assessed. Here we show how some of the parameters of the original protocol can be tuned to adjust the fibre qualities as needed and how a non-toxic, low-temperature protocol may be applied to crosslink the resultant fibres. Our findings demonstrate that the diameter of spun starch fibres and their crystallinity can likely be modified by adjusting the composition of the coagulation bath used. The elements of the coagulation bath can also be varied. We also show that citric acid can be readily used to complement a pure electrospun starch protocol to improve the functional characteristics (e.g. crystallinity and resistance to hydrolytic degradation) of a scaffold for cultured meat applications.