Definition and research guide
This page combines a MeSH definition, publication statistics and selected research abstracts. It is a starting point for reading the literature, not a medical textbook or a systematic evidence review.
Content available: 4 complete abstracts (654 words), 10 references. Full article text is not stored or reproduced here; follow the PMID, DOI or PMC links to read the original sources and their access terms.
Definition
Tools or devices for generating products using the synthetic or chemical conversion capacity of a biological system. They can be classical fermentors, cell culture perfusion systems, or enzyme bioreactors. For production of proteins or enzymes, recombinant microorganisms such as bacteria, mammalian cells, or insect or plant cells are usually chosen.
Definition: NLM Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) scope note (Public domain (U.S. National Library of Medicine); attribution requested). View the MeSH record.
Also known as: Bioreactor; Fermentors; Fermentor.
Where it fits in the MeSH classification
- Broader topics
- Equipment and Supplies; Biotechnology
- Narrower topics
- Photobioreactors
- See also
- Fermentation; Recombinant Proteins; Batch Cell Culture Techniques
Research landscape
PubMed indexes 49,585 records tagged with the MeSH heading “Bioreactors” (counts retrieved 2026-11-04). 14,855 of them (30.0%) were published from 2020 onward, and the busiest period so far is 2010-2019 with 21,967 records.
Reviews account for 3,155 records (6.4%) and meta-analyses for 22. Randomized controlled trials number 7 (0.0%) as a share of all records on the topic. Randomized trials make up only a small share of this literature, so much of what is known comes from laboratory, observational or descriptive work.
Show the data
| Period | Records |
|---|---|
| through 1999 | 0 |
| 2000-2009 | 12,929 |
| 2010-2019 | 21,967 |
| 2020 onward | 14,855 |
Publication-type chart data
| Type | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews | 3,155 | 6.4% |
| Meta-analyses | 22 | 0.0% |
| Randomized controlled trials | 7 | 0.0% |
Method: PubMed query "Bioreactors"[MeSH Terms] with publication-type and date filters, retrieved 2026-11-04.
Reading the evidence in diagnostics and medical technology
A test or device is judged by how well it detects a condition, how often it gives false alarms or misses cases, and whether using it improves outcomes for people. Accuracy depends on who is tested and how common the condition is, so a test that performs well in a specialist hospital can perform differently in the community. Check the reference standard, the population studied, the sensitivity and specificity and whether results were confirmed in a separate group.
Evidence from open-access studies
These open-access studies come from PubMed’s best-match results for this heading (papers whose main topic it is), ranked here by citation count, with one recent addition. Each abstract is reproduced in full under its recorded open licence so that you can read the authors’ own words. They illustrate the literature; they are not a systematic summary of it. Citation counts measure attention, not reliability or clinical benefit.
Efficient and reproducible generation of human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes and cardiac organoids in stirred suspension systems [1]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) have proven invaluable for cardiac disease modeling and regeneration.
- Closing excerpt
- These reproducible, scalable, and resource-efficient approaches to generate iPSC-CMs and organoids will expand their applications, and our benchmark data will enable comparison to cells produced by other cardiac differentiation protocols.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (150 words)
Human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) have proven invaluable for cardiac disease modeling and regeneration. Challenges with quality, inter-batch consistency, cryopreservation and scale remain, reducing experimental reproducibility and clinical translation. Here, we report a robust stirred suspension cardiac differentiation protocol, and we perform extensive morphological and functional characterization of the resulting bioreactor-differentiated iPSC-CMs (bCMs). Across multiple different iPSC lines, the protocol produces 1.2E6/mL bCMs with ~94% purity. bCMs have high viability after cryo-recovery (>90%) and predominantly ventricular identity. Compared to standard monolayer-differentiated CMs, bCMs are more reproducible across batches and have more mature functional properties. The protocol also works with magnetically stirred spinner flasks, which are more economical and scalable than bioreactors. Minor protocol modifications generate cardiac organoids fully in suspension culture. These reproducible, scalable, and resource-efficient approaches to generate iPSC-CMs and organoids will expand their applications, and our benchmark data will enable comparison to cells produced by other cardiac differentiation protocols.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 39009604 · DOI · PMC11251028
Reprogramming Yarrowia lipolytica metabolism for efficient synthesis of itaconic acid from flask to semipilot scale [2]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Itaconic acid is an emerging platform chemical with extensive applications.
- Closing excerpt
- lipolytica for competitive industrial-scale production of itaconic acid.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (157 words)
Itaconic acid is an emerging platform chemical with extensive applications. Itaconic acid is currently produced by Aspergillus terreus through biological fermentation. However, A. terreus is a fungal pathogen that needs additional morphology controls, making itaconic acid production on industrial scale problematic. Here, we reprogrammed the Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) yeast Yarrowia lipolytica for competitive itaconic acid production. After preventing carbon sink into lipid accumulation, we evaluated itaconic acid production both inside and outside the mitochondria while fine-tuning its biosynthetic pathway. We then mimicked the regulation of nitrogen limitation in nitrogen-replete conditions by down-regulating NAD+-dependent isocitrate dehydrogenase through weak promoters, RNA interference, or CRISPR interference. Ultimately, we optimized fermentation parameters for fed-batch cultivations and produced itaconic acid titers of 130.1 grams per liter in 1-liter bioreactors and 94.8 grams per liter in a 50-liter bioreactor on semipilot scale. Our findings provide effective approaches to harness the GRAS microorganism Y. lipolytica for competitive industrial-scale production of itaconic acid.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 39121230 · DOI · PMC11313960
Recovering nutrients and unblocking the cake layer of an electrochemical anaerobic membrane bioreactor [3]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- The sustainable development strategy shifts water treatment from pollution removal to resource recovery.
- Closing excerpt
- This integrated eRAnMBR reactor boasts the benefits of short process, low maintenance, and low carbon footprint, introducing a concept for the next generation of wastewater treatment.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (150 words)
The sustainable development strategy shifts water treatment from pollution removal to resource recovery. Here, an electrochemical resource-recovery anaerobic membrane bioreactor (eRAnMBR) that employed a magnesium plate and conductive membrane as dual anodes is presented and shows excellent performance in carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus recovery, as well as 95% membrane anti-fouling. The Mg2+ released alters the physicochemical properties of sludge, unblocking the cake layer, and recovers ammonium and phosphate, yielding 60.64% purity and 0.08 g d-1 struvite deposited onto cathode to be separated from sludge. The enhanced direct interspecies electron transfer, along with hydrogen evolution and alkalinity increase due to the electrochemical reactions, significantly increase methane yield and purity (93.97%) of the eRAnMBR. This increased internal energy can cover the additional electricity and electrode consumption. This integrated eRAnMBR reactor boasts the benefits of short process, low maintenance, and low carbon footprint, introducing a concept for the next generation of wastewater treatment.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 39438474 · DOI · PMC11496669
Comparing the performance of functional versus taxonomic metagenomics for detecting ammonia disturbances in the biogas system [4]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Biogas is a renewable energy source with great potential, but its production is frequently hindered by process disturbances, of which a high ammonia concentration is one common cause.
- Closing excerpt
- All in all, our hypothesis that functional metagenomics would outperform taxonomic metagenomics only found limited support.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (197 words)
Biogas is a renewable energy source with great potential, but its production is frequently hindered by process disturbances, of which a high ammonia concentration is one common cause. It is desirable that such disturbances are found as early as possible; metagenomics data has the potential to improve this detection. This study compares functional and taxonomic aspects of metagenomics data, hypothesizing that functional data will perform better for detecting ammonia disturbances. The hypothesis was tested by metagenomic sequencing of samples from three independent studies, which followed lab-scale reactors during ammonia disturbances. The resulting sequences were used to predict genes, which were functionally and taxonomically annotated. The read counts of these features were fitted to disturbance states and ammonia concentrations of reactor samples using regularized regression, which allowed filtering out irrelevant features even with limited sample sizes. Within studies, taxonomic data had similar or better performance in detecting ammonia disturbances and in fitting ammonia concentrations. When applying trained models to other studies however, while performance was generally poor, functional models more often performed better compared to taxonomic models than the other way around. All in all, our hypothesis that functional metagenomics would outperform taxonomic metagenomics only found limited support.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 41860433 · DOI · PMC13098368
Key reviews and meta-analyses
The most cited review-type papers among PubMed’s best-match results for this heading, listed with bibliographic details only. Follow the links for the full text and access terms.
- Research article Direct interspecies electron transfer via conductive materials: A perspective for anaerobic digestion applications [5]
- Research article A 20-Year Journey of Partial Nitritation and Anammox (PN/A): from Sidestream toward Mainstream [6]
- Research article Engineering Robust Production Microbes for Large-Scale Cultivation [7]
- Research article Perfusion mammalian cell culture for recombinant protein manufacturing - A critical review [8]
- Research article Continuous flow biocatalysis [9]
- Research article Recent developments on solid-state fermentation for production of microbial secondary metabolites: Challenges and solutions [10]
References
- Prondzynski M, Berkson P, Trembley MA, Tharani Y, Shani K, Bortolin RH, et al.. Efficient and reproducible generation of human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes and cardiac organoids in stirred suspension systems. . 2024. PMID 39009604 · DOI · PMC11251028
- Fu J, Zaghen S, Lu H, Konzock O, Poorinmohammad N, Kornberg A, et al.. Reprogramming Yarrowia lipolytica metabolism for efficient synthesis of itaconic acid from flask to semipilot scale. . 2024. PMID 39121230 · DOI · PMC11313960
- Zhang Y, Wang Y, Chen Z, Hu C, Qu J. Recovering nutrients and unblocking the cake layer of an electrochemical anaerobic membrane bioreactor. . 2024. PMID 39438474 · DOI · PMC11496669
- Boers D, Chapleur O, Andersson AF, Schnürer A. Comparing the performance of functional versus taxonomic metagenomics for detecting ammonia disturbances in the biogas system. . 2026. PMID 41860433 · DOI · PMC13098368
- Park JH, Kang HJ, Park KH, Park HD. Direct interspecies electron transfer via conductive materials: A perspective for anaerobic digestion applications. Bioresour Technol. 2018. PMID 29398288 · DOI
- Wang Z, Zheng M, Duan H, Yuan Z, Hu S. A 20-Year Journey of Partial Nitritation and Anammox (PN/A): from Sidestream toward Mainstream. Environ Sci Technol. 2022. PMID 35657148 · DOI
- Wehrs M, Tanjore D, Eng T, Lievense J, Pray TR, Mukhopadhyay A. Engineering Robust Production Microbes for Large-Scale Cultivation. Trends Microbiol. 2019. PMID 30819548 · DOI
- Bielser JM, Wolf M, Souquet J, Broly H, Morbidelli M. Perfusion mammalian cell culture for recombinant protein manufacturing - A critical review. Biotechnol Adv. 2018. PMID 29738813 · DOI
- Britton J, Majumdar S, Weiss GA. Continuous flow biocatalysis. Chem Soc Rev. 2018. PMID 29922795 · DOI · PMC6441135
- Kumar V, Ahluwalia V, Saran S, Kumar J, Patel AK, Singhania RR. Recent developments on solid-state fermentation for production of microbial secondary metabolites: Challenges and solutions. Bioresour Technol. 2021. PMID 33390315 · DOI
About this article
- Sources
- NLM Medical Subject Headings (definition, synonyms); NCBI PubMed (counts, identifiers); Europe PMC (open-access abstracts and citation counts).
- Verification
- Every reference was resolved against PubMed on 2026-11-04; title, year and DOI matched.
- Review state
- automated source verified; no human expert review has been recorded yet.
- Version
- 1, last updated 2026-11-04.
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Evidence strength
EvidenceHelix's computed view of the study designs behind this topic: how common meta-analyses, randomized trials and reviews are, how recent the literature is, and a plain-language reading. It describes the design mix of the literature. It is not a quality appraisal of any study, and it is not medical advice.