US 2025/0122647 A1 · HOLLOW FIBRES

Abstract

The present disclosure provides extruded or spun, semi-permeable, porous hollow fibres, comprising covalent ester, thioester and/or amide crosslinked polypeptides as well as processes for their production. The hollow fibres may be produced from protein, protein extracts, and/or protein isolates derived from plants, animals, bacteria, algae, archaea, and/or fungi, and in certain embodiments are intended to be suitable for human and/or animal ingestion. In some embodiments, the hollow fibres may be designed to be used in the production of cartridges that are compatible with existing and/or novel bioreactor platforms, for harbouring cell cultures in cultured meat production.

Claims21

Dependent claims

-45. (canceled)

A process for the production of a plurality of semi-permeable, porous hollow fibers, comprising covalent ester, thioester and/or amide bond crosslinked polypeptides, the process comprising the steps:

a. combining:
i. a first composition comprising polypeptides, with
ii. a second composition comprising a solvent and one or more denaturing agents and/or reducing agents, to produce a third composition;
b. incubating the third composition under conditions sufficient to denature and/or reduce at least a fraction of the polypeptides, to produce a fourth composition;
c. extruding or spinning the fourth composition through a plurality of co-axial orifices, together with a bore solution comprising the coagulation bath solution, to produce a plurality of hollow fibers;
d. treating the plurality of hollow fibers with a polycarboxylic acid crosslinking reagent in order to form inter-polypeptide and/or intra-polypeptide polycarboxylic acid derived ester, thioester or amide covalent bond crosslinks within at least a fraction of the polypeptides in the hollow fibers, to produce a plurality of covalently-crosslinked, semi-permeable, porous hollow fibers;
e. treating the covalently-crosslinked, semi-permeable, porous hollow fibers with one or more post-production modification process selected from the group consisting of:
i. treating the covalently-crosslinked, semi-permeable, porous hollow fibers with an organic solvent to increase the relative abundance of beta-sheets in the secondary structure of the polypeptides;
ii. annealing the covalently-crosslinked, semi-permeable, porous hollow fibers;
iii. treating the covalently-crosslinked semi-permeable, porous hollow fibers with a solvent to remove void inclusion elements in the hollow fibers;
iv. washing the covalently-crosslinked semi-permeable, porous hollow fibers with one or more acid(s), alkali(s) and/or buffer solution(s) to decrease at least one of, the Young's modulus, ultimate tensile strength and/or ultimate tensile strain of the hollow fibers;
v. coating the covalently-crosslinked semi-permeable, porous hollow fibers;
and
vi. modifying the surface topography of the covalently-crosslinked, semi-permeable, porous hollow fibers to aid cell attachment and/or cell alignment;
to produce a plurality of treated covalently-crosslinked, semi-permeable, porous hollow fibers;
and
f. drying the treated covalently-crosslinked, semi-permeable, porous hollow fibers, to produce dried, treated covalently-crosslinked, semi-permeable, porous hollow fibers.

14 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application

18/971,711Filed 6 Dec 2024

Priority

GB 2305209.56 Apr 2023

Published

17 Apr 2025

Term ends

Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification57 codes

D01F 4/00
Monocomponent artificial filaments or the like of proteins
A23J 3/14
Working-up of proteins for foodstuffs: vegetable proteins
A23J 3/16
Vegetable proteins: from soybean
A23J 3/227
Texturised simulated foods with high protein content: meat-like textured foods

Hollow fibres

Life of this patent

Hollow fibres

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims21