Browsing by Author "Orellana, Nicole"

Biomaterial scaffolds play a pivotal role in the advancement of cultured meat technology, facilitating essential processes like cell attachment, growth, specialization, and alignment. Currently, there exists limited knowledge concerning the creation of consumable scaffolds tailored for cultured meat applications. This investigation aimed to produce edible scaffolds featuring both smooth and patterned surfaces, utilizing biomaterials such as salmon gelatin, alginate, agarose and glycerol, pertinent to cultured meat and adhering to food safety protocols. The primary objective of this research was to uncover variations in transcriptomes profiles between flat and microstructured edible scaffolds fabricated from marine-derived biopolymers, leveraging high-throughput sequencing techniques. Expression analysis revealed noteworthy disparities in transcriptome profiles when comparing the flat and microstructured scaffold configurations against a control condition. Employing gene functional enrichment analysis for the microstructured versus flat scaffold conditions yielded substantial enrichment ratios, highlighting pertinent gene modules linked to the development of skeletal muscle. Notable functional aspects included filament sliding, muscle contraction, and the organization of sarcomeres. By shedding light on these intricate processes, this study offers insights into the fundamental mechanisms underpinning the generation of muscle-specific cultured meat.

The design of new functional materials for skin tissue engineering is an area of constant research. In this work, a novel wound-dressing biomaterial with a porous structure, previously formulated using salmon-gelatin as main component (called salmon-gelatin biomaterial (SGB)), was tested in vivo using pigs as skin wound models. Four weeks after cutaneous excision and implantation in the animals, the healing process did not show apparent symptoms of inflammation or infection. Interestingly, the temporal evolution of wound size from 100% to around 10% would indicate a faster recovery when SGB was compared against a commercial control. Histological analysis established that wounds treated with SGB presented similar healing and epithelialization profiles with respect to the commercial control. Moreover, vascularized granulation tissue and epithelialization stages were clearly identified, indicating a proliferation phase. These results showed that SGB formulation allows cell viability to be maintained. The latter foresees the development of therapeutic alternatives for skin repair based on SGB fabricated using low cost production protocols.