Page 9 - IJB-9-5

International Journal of Bioprinting

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Tissue-engineered edible bird’s nests (TeeBN)

Yu Liu , Yangyang Liu , Jiayue Liu , Yuwei Li , Jian-Bo Wan , Yiming Niu ,
1†
1
1
1
1†
1
Lei Dong , Li Du , Chunming Wang *
2
3
1,4
1 State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, Institute of Chinese Medicine &
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Health Science, University of Macau, Taipa,
Macau SAR
2 State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University,
Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210093, China
3 Faculty of Law, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR
4 Zhuhai UM Science & Technology Research Institute (ZUMRI), University of Macau, Hengqin,
Guangdong, China
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Advances in 3D bioprinting for regenerative medicine and
drug screening)
Abstract
Edible bird’s nests (EBN)—the nests of swiftlet birds harvested from the wild—
are high-end healthcare food in East Asia, while their excessive harvesting poses
increasing ecological, environmental, and food safety concerns. Here, we report for
the first time a tissue-engineering (TE) approach for fabricating EBNs substitutes by
integrating the technologies of three-dimensional (3D) printing and live cell culture.
The engineered products, tissue-engineered edible bird’s nests (TeeBN), comprise
two layers. The first is a feeding layer that encapsulates epithelial cells in 3D-printed
biocompatible gelation scaffolds. These cells secrete bioactive ingredients, e.g.,
† These authors contributed equally
to this work. sialic acid and epidermal growth factors (EGF), recapitulating the natural production
of these substances by birds. The second is a receiving layer, consisting of food-
*Corresponding author: grade natural polymers, e.g., polysaccharides, which mimics the building blocks
Professor Chunming Wang
(cmwang@umac.mo) of natural EBNs while biologically stabilizing the factors released from the feeding
layer. In vitro characterizations demonstrate that the feeding layer facilitates 3D cell
Citation: Liu Y, Liu Y, Liu J, et al.,
2023, Tissue-engineered edible growth and functions, and the receiving layer (as the end product) contains the
bird’s nests (TeeBN). Int J Bioprint, necessary nutrients expected from natural EBNs—while without harmful substances
9(5): 691. commonly detected in natural EBNs. Further, in vivo metabolomics studies in mice
https://doi.org/10.18063/ijb.691
indicate that TeeBN showed a similar profile of serum metabolites as natural EBN,
Received: October 11, 2022 reflecting comparable nutritional effects. In summary, we innovatively developed a
Accepted: November 16, 2022
Published Online: February 21, tissue engineering-based substitute for EBNs with comparable metabolic functions
2023 and minimized safety risks, opening a new avenue for producing delicacy food from
laboratorial cell culture with 3D printing technology.
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s).
This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution Keywords: Tissue engineering; 3D printing; Cellular agriculture; Food technology;
License, permitting distribution Edible bird’s nests
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is
properly cited.
Publisher’s Note: Whioce
Publishing remains neutral with 1. Introduction
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional Edible bird’s nests (EBN), the nests of swiftlet birds made of solidified saliva, have been
[1]
affiliations. consumed as a delicacy food in East Asia for centuries . Their “health-promoting effects”

Volume 9 Issue 5 (2023) 1 https://doi.org/10.18063/ijb.691