Pumpkin seed proteins rival animal gelatin in increasing the cytoaffinity of edible microbeads for cell-based meat culture.

[Display omitted] • Core-shell microbeads were fabricated from alginate and coated with plant proteins. • Pumpkin seed proteins coated microbeads rival gelatin for high cyto-affinity. • RGD peptides may be responsible for the high cyto-affinity. • The functional microbeads could be used for cell-based meat culture. Edible microbeads are hotly sought after for emerging cell-based meat culture but there are no major breakthroughs so far. Herein we report a functional edible microbead with alginate as core coated with pumpkin proteins as shell. Proteins from 11 plant-seeds were extracted and tested their cytoaffinity as gelatin replacer by grafting them on alginate microbeads and pumpkin seed protein coated microbeads shown the best performance in stimulating proliferation of C2C12 cells (by 17 folds in a week), 3T3-L1 adipocytes, chicken muscle satellite cells and primary porcine myoblast. The cytoaffinity of pumpkin seed protein coated microbeads comparable with that of animal gelatin microbeads. Protein sequencing analysis on pumpkin seed proteins found that it is rich in RGD tripeptide moiety, which are known to be enhance cytoaffinity. Our work advances our search for edible microbeads as ECM materials for cell-based meat culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]