BME PhD Defense: Jordan D. Jones: "From Farm to Lab: The Potential of Decellularized Plant Leaves for Sustainable Meat Production"

"From Farm to Lab: The Potential of Decellularized Plant Leaves for Sustainable Meat Production" -Jordan D. Jones '15, G'22

The global population will outgrow agricultural land by 2050. This looming reality requires major modifications to agricultural methods including crop and livestock production. Cellular agriculture could produce lab-grown meat. Reaching commercial scale production of structured meat products necessitate an edible scaffold to reduce the number of processing steps and improve product. Due to their affordability, familiarity, and accessibility, decellularized spinach leaves emerge as an appealing option.

Previous research has demonstrated that they can support the growth of numerous cell types. In this dissertation, primary bovine satellite cells were grown on decellularized spinach leaves and gelatin-coated glass for 7 and 14 days. After 14 days, 99% of cells were alive, 25% expressed myosin heavy-chain, and the average cytoskeletal alignment kappa was 0.71±0.1. These findings imply decellularized spinach can be used as a scaffold, however, it is uncertain if it is safe to eat. The decellularization approach outlined within yielded comparable decellularization quality to the conventional detergent based decellularization method while maintain the cellulose structure of the leaf. Primary bovine satellite cells grown on scaffolds created using the modified method for 7 days had 97.4% viability. These findings suggest that the new decellularization method is effective and more closely adheres to food safety regulations and could advance cellular agriculture and cultured meat production. Corn husk, a common food waste product, was explored for its potential to direct cell alignment. However, the research found that both spinach and cornhusk scaffolds presented challenges in achieving desired cell alignment and fusion index. Spinach showed marginally higher cell alignment compared to corn husk, but both had low alignment overall. These similarities suggest that the topography had little influence over the observations. In total, these results show that there is still potential for decellularized plants to be used. Further research is needed to identify optimal plant species for skeletal muscle culture and sustainable meat production.

The Committee Members are:

Tanja Dominko, DVM, PhD, Thesis Advisor

George D. Pins, PhD, Chair

Marsha W. Rolle, Ph.D.

Pamela Weathers, PhD, Biology and Biotechnology

Glenn R. Gaudette, PhD, Engineering Department Boston College

For a zoom link, please email [email protected]