Cell-Based Fish: A Novel Approach to Seafood Production and an Opportunity for Cellular Agriculture

Abstract

Cellular agriculture is defined as the production of agricultural products from cell cultures rather than from whole plants or animals. With growing interest in cellular agriculture as a means to address public health, environmental, and animal welfare challenges of animal agriculture, the concept of producing seafood from fish cell-and tissue-cultures is emerging as an approach to address similar challenges with industrial aquaculture systems and marine capture. Cell-based seafood-as opposed to animal-based seafood-can combine developments in biomedical engineering with modern aquaculture techniques. Biomedical engineering developments such as closed-system bioreactor production of land animal cells create a basis for the large scale production of marine animal cells. Aquaculture techniques such as genetic modification and closed system aquaculture have achieved significant gains in production that can pave the way for innovations in cell-based seafood production. Here, we present the current state of innovation relevant to the development of cell-based seafood across multiple species, as well as specific opportunities and challenges that exist for advancing this science. The authors find that the physiological properties of fish celland tissue-culture may be uniquely suited to cultivation in vitro. These physiological properties, including tolerance to hypoxia, high buffering capacity, and low-temperature growth conditions, make marine cell culture an attractive opportunity for scaled production of cell-based seafood; perhaps even more so than mammalian and avian cell cultures for cell-based meats. This opportunity, coupled with the unique capabilities of crustacean tissue-friendly scaffolding such as chitosan, a common seafood waste product and mushroom derivative, presents promise for cell-based seafood production via bioreactor cultivation. To become fully realized, cell-based seafood research will require more understanding of fish muscle cell and tissue cultivation; more investigation into serum-free media formulations optimized for fish cell culture; and bioreactor designs tuned to the needs of fish cells for large scale production.

An empirical assessment of common or usual names to label cell‐based seafood products

“…Seafood is used as the basis for the stimulus materials because all of the previous peer-reviewed studies examining public perceptions of the various names proposed for cell-based products have focused on meat. However, the development of cell-based seafood products is also well underway (Krueger, Rubio, Datar, & Stachura, 2019), with at least six companies actively working to bring cell-based seafood products to market (Leschin-Hoar, 2019).…”

Cultivating Multidisciplinarity: Manufacturing and Sensing Challenges in Cultured Meat Production

“…The optimal temperature depends on the type of cells used [185]. The culture of mammalian cells regularly happens at 37 • C, while the fish cell culture is maintained in the temperature range between 15-30 • C [186]. Therefore, the process temperature control in the range of 10-40 • C with an accuracy lower than 0.5 • C is required to avoid loss in production.…”

The long and narrow path for novel cell‐based seafood to reduce fishing pressure for marine ecosystem recovery

“…As previously mentioned, four cell-based seafood companies have made it through the initial development hurdles (Table 1) in a relatively short time frame (about 2-4 years). However, significant technological advancements remain (Rubio et al, 2019;Post et al, 2020). These include, but are not limited to, (a) researching and developing new cell lines for various species, (b) optimizing cell proliferation through bioreactor design and cell culture process, (c) developing safe, edible structural scaffolds for the cells to create filet-style products, and (d) refining the growth medium recipe to maximize cellular efficiency.…”

“…There are a handful of startups working on salmon, yellowtail, bluefin tuna and shrimp products, with ongoing research focused on developing cell lines and refining the product development process (e.g. meat structure, growth medium, bioreactor scalability; Rubio et al, 2019). This growing industry is largely driven by the common goals of sustainably producing additional food for a growing population and reducing human impacts on ocean health, with production targets in the range of millions of pounds per year.…”