# An Edible, Decellularized Plant Derived Cell Carrier for Lab Grown Meat
## 4 Discussion  
Meats and other animal products account for an estimated 43 percent of the global protein supply and are a robust nutritional resource; however, innovation to ensure the environmental sustainability of animal protein is necessary [1, 19, 20]. With an increasing trend in meat consumption in developing countries, current livestock systems, which already demand approximately 25 percent of available land on Earth, may continue to contribute to freshwater depletion, biodiversity loss, and deforestation [21, 22]. The realization of lab grown meat products is dependent on the development of more affordable, available, and relevant technologies for biomanufacturing at scale. One such technology, decellularized plant biomaterials, has been studied as cell scaffolds for a wide variety of biomedical applications due to their diversity of macro and microstructures [15]. For example, decellularized spinach has been explored due to its robust vasculature and its ability to support a number of cell types. This same technology has been translated from biomedical applications to cultured meat applications [16]. Decellularized spinach has recently been explored as a scaffold for bovine skeletal muscle in the context of lab grown meat. While this study demonstrated the ability to support satellite cell differentiation, and suggested that topological features of plant scaffolds may play a role in the alignment of muscle fibers, further integration of decellularized plant technology into potential bioprocesses is warranted. Stir tank bioreactors and other suspension-style reactor designs, operating conditions, and inputs have yet to be designed with consideration of the economic demands of the cultured meat industry. Recent developments in serum-free culture, plant-derived proteins, and recombinant growth factors, coupled with advanced technologies in spent media recycling, might drive down the cost of operation of suspension bioreactors to an economically competitive level. Still, further investigation into their development is warranted [23, 24, 25]. The simple decellularization process presented yielded plant-derived scaffolds with the capacity to support mammalian cells during culture (Figure 6). Scaffold preparation was not dependent on any secondary bioprocesses, such as those dependent on bacterially derived materials; rather, the production of decellularized florets could be completed anywhere that broccoli can be grown, on a traditional farm, or an integrated hydroponics facility. Future studies exploring the capacity for locally abundant plant materials to serve as adequate microcarriers is encouraged to further expand the accessibility of cultured meat. Figure 6: A simple process describing the preparation of decellularized floret scaffolds for cultured meat applications. Histological analysis showed that decellularized florets are primarily composed of cellulose. This ultimately suggests that, if these scaffolds are not further modified during downstream processing, they may impart unto a final cultured meat product the nutritional benefit of insoluble fiber. Ultimately, an edible cell carrier will be considered in respect to the nutritional content of the total cultured meat serving. It would be advantageous if the scaffold used as a cell carrier during the suspension culture contributed positive nutritional attributes to the final product [26]. Future studies examining the nutritional qualities of cultured meat grown on decellularized plant scaffolds should be encouraged. While previous studies have demonstrated that decellularized plants can support the adhesion and viability of numerous cell types during extended culture, cell inoculation methods in those studies did not reflect the dynamic inoculation that cells are expected to experience upon introduction into a suspension-style bioreactor [16]. Previously, cells were placed directly onto a well-supported, unmoving flat scaffold.