Altered Levels of Known Allergens in Cultured Primary Bovine Myoblasts for Cultivated Meat

Cellular agriculture combines cell culture and tissue engineering techniques to produce animal-derived food products. While cell culture is routinely reported in the medical literature to affect protein expression in primary mammalian cells, the impact of these changes has yet to be established in the context of food production and allergenicity. To address this, primary bovine myoblasts were cultured for short-, medium-, and long-durations and then compared to native tissue. Proteomic and immunoblotting analyses identified cumulative changes at increasing passage numbers, with significant differences between cultured cells and native tissue. While allergens Bos d 6 and Bos d 13 were less abundant in cultured cells, an increase in immunoglobulin E interactions with Galα1-3Galβ1-4GlcNAc-R (α-Gal) in cultured cells indicates that α-Gal may be more abundant. Results demonstrate that the relative abundance of allergens in cultivated beef products will likely differ from that of traditional meat, highlighting a need for further investigation.