The agricultural revolution of the Neolithic era transformed this relationship. As humans settled into wetlands rich in natural resources and began cultivating crops and domesticating cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats, meat consumption became more predictable but also more constrained. Livestock represented long-term investments, and the meaning of meat shifted from opportunistic game to managed capital. Archaeological studies reveal that this dietary transition came at a cost: overall protein intake declined, human height decreased from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic, and conditions such as osteomalacia, dental cavities, and malnutrition became more prevalent among populations reliant on high-carbohydrate, low-protein diets. Meat also became embedded in ritual, hierarchy, and identity, with slaughter ceremonies and distribution patterns reflecting social stratification in early agrarian societies.

Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Industrial Revolution, meat remained a marker of class and power. Livestock served primarily as sources of labor, dairy, wool, and leather, and most ordinary people rarely ate fresh meat. After the Black Death devastated the labor force in the fourteenth century, landowners expanded livestock breeding for profit, and a growing rural economy increasingly depended on animals. Scientific advances in forage production, selective breeding, and animal husbandry, together with urbanization and mercantilism, gradually increased supply. The Industrial Revolution mechanized slaughtering and butchering, turning meat processing from a small craft into a science-based industry dominated by sausages, bacon, and canned products. By the twentieth century, vaccines, optimized feed formulas, and global cold-chain logistics had made meat a daily staple in many developed nations.

Today, however, that industrial success has collided with serious global challenges. The Food and Agriculture Organization projects that the world population will reach 9.73 billion by 2050, driving continued growth in demand for animal protein even as livestock production accounts for an estimated 14 to 21 percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, primarily methane from enteric fermentation and manure management. Public health debates, including the controversy over red and processed meat consumption, animal welfare concerns about factory farming, and consumer shifts toward vegetarian and flexitarian diets, have intensified pressure on conventional producers. A new review by Dongheon Lee and Cheorun Jo of Seoul National University, published in Food Science of Animal Resources, argues that the industry must respond with technological innovation rather than incremental change, and it maps out the most promising avenues now under development.

Among the most transformative of these is the application of artificial intelligence and hyperspectral imaging to meat quality assessment. Hyperspectral imaging captures both spatial and spectral information simultaneously, collecting wavelengths from the visible range of 400 to 750 nanometers into the near-infrared and mid-infrared regions up to 25,000 nanometers. The spectral signatures reflect molecular changes, such as the vibration and stretching of C-H, O-H, and N-H bonds from moisture, amides, and lipids, and even the fluorescence of NADH produced during microbial and endogenous enzyme activity. Machine learning and deep learning algorithms, including partial least squares regression, support vector machines, and convolutional neural networks, are then trained on these data to predict freshness, amino acid content, lipid oxidation, and sensory attributes such as saltiness, fatness, and umami taste. Researchers have even developed smartphone applications equipped with artificial neural networks that allow consumers and suppliers to estimate beef tenderness from a simple image, suggesting a future where quality evaluation is democratized across the supply chain.

Complementing these imaging technologies, metabolomics of meat exudates offers a non-invasive route to quality prediction. Nucleotide-related metabolites derived from ATP degradation and amines such as tyramine, produced by microbial metabolism, correlate strongly with conventional spoilage indicators like pH, volatile basic nitrogen, and total bacterial counts. Models built on drip metabolites have successfully predicted freshness in packaged chicken and pork loin, while metabolomic profiling also reveals flavor precursors that determine palatability. At the farm level, smart livestock farming integrates the Internet of Things, digital sensors, wireless networks, robotics, and artificial intelligence into a three-step process of data acquisition, AI-assisted decision-making, and autonomous execution. Studies have demonstrated the power of this approach in practice: deep learning algorithms paired with closed-circuit television networks have accurately identified known and newly introduced Hanwoo cattle, while convolutional neural network models have detected anemia in small ruminants to optimize parasite management. Precision feeding systems further tailor nutrient delivery to individual animals, improving economics and animal welfare simultaneously.

Genomic technologies represent perhaps the most radical intervention in conventional meat production. Tools such as CRISPR/Cas9, zinc-finger nucleases, transcription activator-like effector nucleases, and base editing enable rapid introduction of genetic variation that would take generations through traditional breeding. Researchers have produced avian leukosis virus-resistant chickens, PRRS virus-resistant pigs, and mycobacterium-resistant cattle, reducing reliance on antibiotics and addressing antimicrobial resistance concerns. Knocking out the myostatin gene, a negative regulator of skeletal muscle growth, improves growth performance and meat quality traits including pH, shear force, and intramuscular fat content. Insertion of the heat-tolerance gene SLICK from Senepol cattle into Holstein genomes enhances thermoregulation, while editing of genes such as IGF2, MyoD1, and fat-1 targets cell proliferation, differentiation, and the conversion of n-6 to n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Yet public acceptance, inconsistent regulation across countries, and concerns about off-target effects remain significant barriers, prompting a shift toward safer, more precise base and prime editing platforms.

Climate resilience is another critical frontier. Strategies include installing shade infrastructure and irrigation, adjusting feeding regimes to cooler times of day with electrolytes and heat-tolerant forages, and selective breeding for thermotolerance. Dietary manipulation offers a powerful mitigation tool: upcycling food wastes, by-products, and insect-based proteins into livestock feed reduces global feed demand and alleviates food-feed competition, while supplementation with dietary oils and phytochemicals has been shown to decrease enteric methane emissions. Interestingly, research on climate adaptation has concentrated heavily on ruminants, leaving a significant gap for non-ruminants such as chickens and pigs, whose meat consumption is comparable or higher in many countries. Small-scale farmers who cannot afford costly adaptation infrastructure may also switch to heat- and water-tolerant species such as goats and donkeys, although the review’s authors note this is a coping strategy rather than a fundamental solution.

Beyond improving conventional production, the review highlights cellular agriculture as a complementary paradigm. Cell-based food, also known as cultivated or cultured meat, is produced by isolating animal stem cells, proliferating them in nutrient-rich media, differentiating them into muscle fibers, adipocytes, or connective tissues, and scaffolding them to create structured products. The field has moved remarkably fast: the first 100-gram beef patty, unveiled by Mark Post’s team in the Netherlands in 2013, cost roughly $330,000 to produce, but the price of a cell-based patty had dropped to $11.36 within four years, and the cost of chicken patty production has now fallen below $1,190 per kilogram. Singapore approved the first commercial cell-based products in 2020, the United States followed in 2023, and Israel and Hong Kong granted approval in 2024. In 2025, the FDA approved the first cell-based fat and cultivated salmon products for commercialization. Key research priorities now include serum-free media development to eliminate fetal bovine serum, edible and biodegradable scaffold materials, vascularization strategies to deliver oxygen and nutrients in dense tissues, and co-culture of muscle and fat cells to reproduce marbling and flavor complexity.

Precision fermentation and hybrid cell-based foods round out the emerging protein landscape. Precision fermentation uses genetically engineered yeasts and fungi to produce heme proteins, structural proteins, enzymes, lipids, and flavorings that are functionally identical to their animal-derived counterparts, enhancing the color, flavor, and nutrition of meat alternatives. Hybrid cell-based foods blend animal, plant, and microbial components, with plant proteins typically comprising 20 to 50 percent of formulations to exploit their biocompatibility and structural flexibility, while mycelium-based ingredients add dietary fiber, phenolic compounds, and antioxidant capacity. The authors emphasize that these technologies will not replace conventional meat but rather complement it in a mixed-model food system. Conventional meat retains advantages in sensory richness, nutritional value, and cultural familiarity, while cell-based and plant-based alternatives address sustainability, ethics, and resource efficiency. Consumer acceptance remains the decisive variable: food neophobia, price expectations, and perceived unnaturalness are the principal obstacles, though studies show that transparent scientific information and safety assurance can significantly reduce skepticism. As Lee and Jo conclude, the future of meat will depend on how thoughtfully and responsively we innovate its production, with meat science expanding into a multidisciplinary endeavor that integrates biotechnology, tissue engineering, artificial intelligence, and synthetic biology to build resilient and sustainable food systems.

Subject of Research: Innovations in meat production technologies and cellular agriculture for sustainable food systems

Article Title: The future of meat: innovations in production within an expanding and sustainable food system

Article References: Lee, D., & Jo, C. (2026). The future of meat: innovations in production within an expanding and sustainable food system. Food Science of Animal Resources, 46(1), Article 93. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44463-026-00079-4

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44463-026-00079-4

Keywords: meat production, cellular agriculture, cultivated meat, hyperspectral imaging, artificial intelligence, smart livestock farming, CRISPR gene editing, climate resilience, greenhouse gas emissions, precision fermentation, hybrid meat products, food sustainability

The researchers, Anthony Pius Bassey, Wangang Zhang, and Guanghong Zhou of Nanjing Agricultural University’s State Key Laboratory of Meat Quality Control and Cultured Meat Development, synthesized evidence from systematic searches across Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and CAB Abstracts, supplemented by policy documents and technical reports. Their geographic focus centered on China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, the countries with the richest peer-reviewed literature, though they acknowledge that South Asia and smaller Southeast Asian nations remain underrepresented in the evidence base. What emerges is a portrait of an industry under compound pressure from four directions at once: environmental degradation, biological fragility, resource dependence, and eroding consumer trust.

The environmental toll of concentrated animal feeding operations has moved from peripheral concern to the center of regulatory and public conflict. Massive volumes of animal manure create nutrient hotspots that seep into groundwater, and in Thailand’s Chao Phraya River Basin, dense concentrations of poultry and swine farms have been repeatedly linked to eutrophication and fish kills driven by nitrogen- and phosphorus-rich runoff. Slaughterhouses compound the problem: in the Indian city of Chennai, a typical facility generates 8 to 10 tonnes of waste daily, and untreated effluent discharged into sewers or water bodies can create anaerobic dead zones that devastate aquatic life. In Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, expanding farms have degraded air quality through ammonia and hydrogen sulfide emissions, causing odor pollution and health worries for nearby communities. These impacts are steadily eroding the social license of intensive livestock production across the region.

Biological vulnerability may be the most dramatic weakness. The hyper-intensification of Asian livestock has created what the authors describe as a perfect epidemiological storm, in which extreme animal density amplifies pathogens and long-distance transport networks ferry disease across borders with ease. The 2018 African Swine Fever panzootic demonstrated the stakes catastrophically: China’s swine herd fell by roughly 40 percent, and the outbreak inflicted an estimated 0.78 percent loss in national GDP in 2019. The crisis was not a random accident but, the review argues, a direct consequence of the system’s own operational logic. The very concentration and connectivity that generated efficiency became its greatest liability, exposing a biosecurity weakness that threatened the entire region’s food supply.

Resource dependence adds a geopolitical dimension. China imported around 105 million metric tonnes of soybeans in 2024, with Brazil supplying roughly 76 percent of that total on average over recent years, and drought-driven price spikes in 2020 and 2021 significantly raised costs for Chinese hog farmers. Japan, which imports nearly all of its feed corn from the United States, saw feed costs hit a decade high after the 2022 surge in global corn prices triggered by the war in Ukraine, pushing numerous mid-sized operators into bankruptcy. Vietnam’s rapidly expanding pork and aquaculture sectors depend critically on imported soy and fishmeal, a vulnerability exposed when pandemic-era freight costs spiked and producers lost export market share. In Indonesia, fewer than 20 million cattle scattered across thousands of islands cannot keep pace with demand. The review concludes that this reliance on foreign inputs has transformed the meat industry from a purely economic sector into a matter of national security.

Consumer trust, meanwhile, has been battered by a history of food safety scandals. China’s 2008 melamine contamination of infant formula and the 2015 “Zombie Meat” scandal involving long-expired frozen products continue to shape perceptions. In India, a Food Safety and Standards Authority investigation found significant proportions of meat samples from processed food outlets contained pork or horse DNA despite being labeled as chicken or mutton. Vietnam has seen repeated seizures of smuggled and chemically treated meat, while Malaysian importers have flagged safety concerns over pork shipments from African Swine Fever-affected Thailand. These scandals, the authors argue, are symptoms of systemic oversight failures in opaque industrialized supply chains, and their cumulative effect is pushing consumers toward alternatives promising better traceability, ethics, and safety.

Against this backdrop, three technological niches are reshaping the industry. Precision livestock farming deploys artificial intelligence, Internet of Things sensors, and blockchain to monitor animal health and supply chains. In Japan, where aging farmer populations strain conventional husbandry, Fujitsu has partnered with the government on an AI system that analyzes video footage of Wagyu cattle to detect subtle changes in gait, behavior, and feeding that signal early disease or stress. India’s Licious platform runs a vertically controlled farm-to-fork model with IoT-enabled cold-chain monitoring, while Stellapps Technologies uses smart wearable collars to track the activity, rumination, and health of millions of cattle. After the ASF crisis, Walmart China implemented blockchain-based pork tracking, recording farm origin, slaughter date, processing batch, and logistics on an immutable ledger that consumers can verify by scanning a QR code.

Circular economy innovations are turning waste liabilities into assets. Since 2020, China’s National Development and Reform Commission has mandated biogas digesters on large-scale livestock and poultry farms, capturing methane from manure for electricity and heat while converting nutrient-rich digestate into organic fertilizer. Across Southeast Asia, black soldier fly larvae are being used to upcycle organic waste into protein meal for aquaculture and poultry feed; a Philippine startup called Insiklo converts roughly 500 kilograms of household and market waste daily from Los Baños municipality, and a vertical modular setup boosted its conversion yield fivefold compared with traditional concrete beds. In Vietnam, projects supported by the International Rice Research Institute promote larvae processing of rice bran and residues into protein for small-scale aquaculture, cutting feed costs and improving farm-level circularity.

Biological alternatives face the steepest technical hurdles, particularly in a region defined by demanding culinary traditions. Asian cooking techniques such as stir-frying, braising, and high-heat wok grilling impose specific structural requirements, and regional dishes prize the umami richness delivered by glutamic acid and inosine-5′-monophosphate. Comparative analyses show cultivated meat falls short on both counts, with glutamic acid lower in cultivated chicken and IMP markedly reduced in both chicken and cattle tissues compared with conventional meat. Plant-based proteins carry volatile compounds such as hexanal and 1-octen-3-ol that produce “beany” and “grassy” off-flavors, though heme proteins like leghemoglobin can bind and neutralize them through hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interactions. Nutritional analyses of 27 animal and alternative products in Asian markets found alternatives generally lower in lysine and methionine and less digestible. Hybrid strategies offer a promising compromise: research incorporating 10 percent cultured porcine fat into plant-based meatballs expanded fatty acid diversity from 20 to 26 types and produced taste profiles closest to conventional meat.

Commercial momentum is nonetheless accelerating. Singapore’s 2020 regulatory approval of cultivated meat created a global first, and its “30 by 30” food security goal is aggressively catalyzing alternative protein ecosystems. China’s Joe’s Future Foods has completed 2,000-liter pilot production of cultivated meat, Hong Kong’s OmniFoods has introduced plant-based pork through food service partnerships, and South Korean startups Cellmeat and Space F have developed cultured seafood and pork prototypes. Companies such as Singapore’s Ants Innovate are engineering cell-based ingredients for dumplings and grilled skewers, while Karana reformulates jackfruit products for halal certification across Muslim-majority markets. The review’s central insight is that this transition succeeds or fails on coordination among three mutually reinforcing forces: corporate-led investment providing capital and market access, state-backed orchestration opening regulatory windows, and digital intermediation integrating value chains. That hybrid model carries inherent tensions, between corporate consolidation and equitable access, technological efficiency and smallholder livelihoods, environmental metrics and cultural legitimacy, and the authors warn that whether Asia’s reconfigured meat system proves sustainable, resilient, and fair will depend on how deliberately those contradictions are managed.

Subject of Research: Sustainability transitions and technological reconfiguration of the meat industry in Asia

Article Title: Technological landscapes and sustainable transitions: reconfiguring the meat industry in Asia

Article References: Bassey, A. P., Zhang, W., & Zhou, G. (2026). Technological landscapes and sustainable transitions: reconfiguring the meat industry in Asia. Food Science of Animal Resources, 46(1), Article 94. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44463-026-00078-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44463-026-00078-5

Keywords: meat industry, Asia, sustainable transitions, precision livestock farming, cultivated meat, circular economy, food security, African Swine Fever, blockchain traceability, plant-based alternatives, consumer trust, halal certification

The finding matters because cell expansion is one of the major cost bottlenecks in any cell-derived protein production system. Satellite cells are the stem cells responsible for repairing and building skeletal muscle, and they are the preferred starting material for cultivated meat and other cell-based protein ingredients because they naturally proliferate and then differentiate into muscle fibers. In most laboratories around the world, virtually every mammalian cell line is cultured at 37 degrees Celsius. But birds are not mammals. A healthy chicken runs markedly hotter than a human, and cells isolated from chicken embryos may therefore be operating below their evolutionary optimum when grown under the conventional mammalian regime.

To test this idea rigorously, the team isolated satellite cells from the leg muscles of 15-day-old chick embryos using an enzymatic digestion protocol with collagenase D and dispase II, followed by sequential filtration and differential plating to remove contaminating fibroblasts. Before any growth experiments began, the researchers performed chromosomal karyotype analysis on the cells, including GTG-banding, to confirm their chicken origin and to verify that neither culture temperature was inducing chromosomal abnormalities. The cells displayed the expected avian karyotype, with roughly eight to ten pairs of large macrochromosomes and the characteristic dot-like microchromosomes, and this pattern held true regardless of whether the cells had been maintained at 37 or 40 degrees Celsius. That genetic stability check is essential for any production platform, since uncontrolled chromosomal damage during long-term expansion would disqualify a cell population from food or biomedical applications.

The growth data were striking. When the researchers counted cells at 48-hour intervals across successive passages, the cultures held at 40 degrees Celsius consistently produced higher cell numbers than the 37-degree controls, with statistically significant differences appearing at passages 6, 7, 8, 10, and 11. Population doubling time, a standard metric describing how long a cell population needs to double in number, was significantly shorter at 40 degrees at multiple passages. Perhaps more importantly, the 37-degree cultures began to show signs of growth retardation and increasing variability from passage 6 onward, a pattern that suggests cellular senescence or stress accumulating over extended culture. The warmer cells, by contrast, maintained stable proliferation throughout the experiment.

Metabolic assays reinforced the picture. Using a Cell Counting Kit-8 assay, which measures the metabolic activity of living cells as a proxy for viability, the team found that cells grown at 40 degrees Celsius showed significantly higher activity both at early passage, passage 3, and at late passage, passage 9. In practical terms, this means the physiological temperature did not merely push cells through a temporary growth spurt; it appeared to sustain their health and vigor over many generations of expansion. The authors emphasized that the prolonged 40-degree exposure did not induce chronic thermal toxicity, addressing the most obvious concern about growing cells above the conventional mammalian setpoint. For bioprocess engineers, shorter doubling times combined with sustained viability translate directly into fewer days, fewer culture vessels, and lower cost per gram of cell-derived protein.

The molecular story was more nuanced. Immunofluorescence staining for paired box-7, or Pax-7, the transcription factor that defines the quiescent satellite cell state, showed a higher Pax-7 protein ratio in the 40-degree group. Yet when the researchers measured messenger RNA by quantitative PCR, Pax-7 transcript levels were significantly higher at 37 degrees, while expression of myoblast determination protein, or MyoD, the master regulator that marks the commitment to myogenic differentiation, was upregulated at 40 degrees. The authors caution that mRNA abundance and protein abundance are regulated at different biological levels and do not always correlate, so the two measurements should be read as complementary indicators of myogenic status rather than contradictory ones. Taken together, the data suggest that the warmer condition strikes a balance between cell cycle progression and differentiation, shifting cells transcriptionally toward myogenic commitment while still supporting robust proliferation.

Terminal differentiation, however, was essentially unchanged. When the researchers switched the cells to differentiation medium and assessed myogenin expression, myosin heavy chain production, and the fusion index, the percentage of nuclei incorporated into multinucleated myotubes, they found no statistically significant differences between the two temperatures. Myogenin mRNA, myogenin protein, and myosin heavy chain staining all told the same story: both temperatures could drive the cells to form mature muscle-like tissue, but they appeared to get there through different regulatory routes, one centered on Pax-7 and the other on MyoD. This is an encouraging result for producers, because it implies that switching to 40 degrees during the expansion phase does not compromise the cell’s fundamental ability to differentiate into contractile muscle material later.

The most provocative part of the study concerns nutrition. Bicinchoninic acid protein assays showed that total protein content did not differ significantly between the two temperatures, and neither differed from actual chick leg muscle tissue. But amino acid profiling with a dedicated amino acid analyzer revealed a qualitative split. Cells cultured at 37 degrees accumulated higher levels of glycine and alanine, amino acids associated with metabolic homeostasis, cellular integrity, and adaptive responses under altered growth conditions. Cells cultured at 40 degrees were significantly enriched in the branched-chain amino acids valine and isoleucine, as well as lysine. Branched-chain amino acids are the essential building blocks most directly tied to muscle protein anabolism, and they are known to activate the mTOR signaling pathway, the same nutrient-sensing pathway that previous work has linked to temperature-enhanced proliferation in avian satellite cells. In other words, the warmer culture condition not only grows cells faster but also yields a protein product with a profile skewed toward the amino acids most valued in muscle-derived food proteins.

The authors conclude that 40 degrees Celsius represents an optimal culture temperature for the efficient expansion of chick satellite cells, offering a practical, equipment-light strategy for anyone producing cell-derived protein materials. The study also fills a gap in the literature: earlier reports had shown that temperatures near the avian physiological range boost proliferation of chicken satellite cells, but those investigations largely stopped at cellular kinetics and early myogenic markers, without evaluating the nutritional quality of the end product. By integrating quantitative growth measurements, molecular validation, and full amino acid profiling in a single framework, the Korean team has provided a template for how culture conditions should be optimized not just for speed but for the biochemical character of the final ingredient. As the alternative protein market races toward projected demand of tens of millions of tons annually, such incremental process refinements, adjusting a thermostat rather than engineering a new cell line, may prove to be among the most immediately deployable tools for making cultivated protein economically competitive.

Beyond the headline findings, the study carries practical implications for how cell-culture processes are designed at scale. Incubator temperature is one of the few process parameters that costs essentially nothing to change, unlike medium formulation, scaffold materials, or genetic engineering, all of which add expense, regulatory complexity, or both. A simple thermal adjustment that shortens population doubling time compounds across every passage in an expansion pipeline, so even a modest per-passage gain can translate into substantially shorter overall production timelines when cells are grown through the ten or more passages typically required to build industrial biomass.

The amino acid results also invite a broader conversation about how cell-derived ingredients should be evaluated. Conventional nutrition science judges protein sources partly on their essential amino acid profile, and the enrichment of valine, isoleucine, and lysine at 40 degrees Celsius suggests that process conditions can shape not just how much protein is made but what kind. Lysine is of particular interest because it is frequently the limiting essential amino acid in cereal-based diets worldwide, so a production method that naturally biases cells toward lysine-rich protein could carry nutritional relevance beyond the cultivated meat sector.

Some caveats remain. The experiments were conducted in two-dimensional culture with serum-containing medium, whereas commercial production would likely rely on serum-free formulations and three-dimensional scaffolding, either of which could interact with temperature in unpredictable ways. The cells were also derived from embryos rather than from adult animals, and whether satellite cells from mature broiler chickens respond identically to the warmer regime has yet to be demonstrated. The authors likewise note that the divergence between Pax-7 protein and messenger RNA measurements underscores how much basic biology of avian myogenesis at physiological temperature still awaits mechanistic explanation.

Even so, the work strengthens a growing consensus that species-appropriate culture conditions deserve systematic attention. As cell agriculture matures, the laboratories that win on cost may be those that pay closest attention to the biology of the organism their cells came from.

Subject of Research: Effect of physiological culture temperature on proliferation, myogenic differentiation, and amino acid profile of chick satellite cells

Article Title: Physiological temperature enhances proliferative capacity and protein production characteristics of chick satellite cells

Article References: Kim, D. B., Lee, H. J., Lee, H. W., Jang, H. G., Oh, S.-H., Kim, J. H., & Lee, S. Y. (2026). Physiological temperature enhances proliferative capacity and protein production characteristics of chick satellite cells. Food Science of Animal Resources, 46(1), Article 101. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44463-026-00103-7

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44463-026-00103-7

Keywords: chick satellite cells, culture temperature, cell-derived protein, cultivated meat, branched-chain amino acids, cell proliferation, myogenic differentiation, alternative protein, cell culture, Pax-7, MyoD, mTOR signaling