Unlike formula, breastmilk composition is dynamic, responding to milk removal that occurs during breastfeeding. This plasticity of breastmilk composition may be key to early infant growth and programming of development. An exciting new study demonstrates how removal of milk by the infant stimulates changes not only in the lipid composition but also the cellular components of breastmilk. This knowledge now sets the basis for new clinical interventions aimed at improving health outcomes of compromised infants, such as those born prematurely. Read More...
When thinking about infant nutrition, selenium isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes to mind. But it’s been known for more than 50 years that selenium is a crucial micronutrient. This trace mineral can’t be synthesized in the human body, and is required for a variety of functions including antioxidant defense, modulation of the inflammatory response, and production of thyroid hormones. It acts in conjunction with many proteins, and about 25 genes encoding these “selenoproteins” have been identified in humans. Selenoprotein deficiency has been associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease and stroke. Read More...
Maternal antibodies play an important role in protecting newborns from harmful pathogens. Antibodies known as immunoglobulins (Igs) are transferred from the mother’s placenta into the fetus, where they protect the infant while the infant’s immune system is still developing, Human milk also contains many different Igs, such as IgA, IgM, IgG, and secretory forms of IgA and IgM. Consuming human milk provides additional immune protection to infants and has been shown to reduce the risk of infectious diseases. Read More...
Begin by navigating your browser to the JGI IMG website: http://img.jgi.doe.gov/cgi-bin/pub/main.cgi Once at the IMG homepage, one could either select a particular genome, group of genomes or search the entire database which contains 4890 genomes (includes viruses and plasmids separately) as of July 2009. To select genomes of interest go to the ‘Find Genomes’ tab at the top of the page and select the genomes you would like to search. Alternatively, there is a phylogenetic view which may be a more useful way to navigate. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will be searching the entire database of microbial genomes entered into IMG. As with many bioinformatic problems there are several paths one could take to solve a particular problem. This introduction to IMG will cover the two easiest methods to scan for milk-related genes by searching for sequence homology to known genes or consensus sequences. This analyis could be performed with either nucleotide or amino acid sequence in IMG. For example if we would like to examine the distribution of the solute binding protein Blon_0343 in bacteria we would first click on the ‘find genes’ tab, and then the BLAST button. Then retrieve the amino acid sequence here: Blon_0343or copy it from below: >Blon_0343 MTHKGVIMKKSIRLIAAVAALAMTAGAAACGSGTSQKNNKADVSLNDINSALTDTSKTTDLTVWAYSAKQ IEGPVKAFQERYPHIKINFVNTGAASDHFTKFQNVVSANKGVPDVVQMSISEYEQYAVSGALLNFESDEI EKAWGTQYAQAAWKNVHFGGGLYGTPQDAAPLALYVRKDILDEHGLKVPTTWQEFYDEGVKLHKQDPSKY MGFISSSDTSLFGVLRTVGAKPWTVKDTTNIDFSLTTGRVAEFIKFIQKCLDDGVLRAAATGTDEFNREV NDGVYATRLEGCWQGNIYKDQNPSLKGKMVVAHPLAWGNDGESYQSESTGSMFSVSSATPKDKQAAALAF IQWVNGSKDGVSEFLTANKGNYFMASNYYQKDKSKRDQQETDGYFANTNVNEIYFESMDKVNMDWDYIPF PAQLTVAFGDTVAPALTGKGDLLTAFTKLQDNLKSYAEDNGFKVTTDAD Next paste the Blon_0344 sequence into the BLAST field and press the ‘Run BLAST’ button The output could now be further examined using the IMG system. Searching by function A second method of searching for milk-related features involves the uses of scanning for functional motifs. Specifically looking for the COGs and Pfams that are associated with proteins of interest. COGs refer to Clusters of Orthologous Groups of proteins which were delineated by comparing protein sequences encoded in major […]
The original practice of applying personal preferences for selection evolved into a modern and sophisticated science. The latest genetic tools to apply to this science are “personalized” individual animal genome sequences and SNP genotyping arrays. These same tools are being used to evaluate the genetic makeup of existing breeds with dairy breeds, specifically Holstein-Friesian, as a reference point. Read More...
In the first hours and days after a human baby is born, mothers aren't producing the white biofluid that typically comes to mind when we think about milk. They synthesize a yellowish milk known as colostrum or "pre-milk." Colostrum is the first substance human infants are adapted to consume, and despite being low in fat, colostrum plays many roles in the developing neonate. Historically and cross-culturally, colostrum was viewed very differently than it is amongst industrialized populations today. Read More...
Demonstrating cause and effect can be a tricky business. In some areas of medicine, where double-blind prospective trials are commonplace, it is less of a challenge. By comparison, the field of public health, researchers often have to gather information as best they can—clues about human motivations, traces of behaviors, and diseases—and then do their best to identify the links. Scientists studying whether mothers who breastfeed have better long-term metabolic health than mothers who do not breastfeed have come up against these problems. Recent work has focused sharply on isolating the causal pattern, and has found that breastfeeding itself does not affect long-term maternal metabolic health. Read More...
There is a laboratory in Rennes, the capital of Brittany, France that seeks to mimic the interior of the human gut. It has a machine with a compartment that pretends to be a stomach, full of acid and enzymes. Another compartment replicates the conditions of the small intestine. A computer modulates how food, in its various stages of digestion, flows through this system, by altering the activity of peristaltic pumps. In the past couple of years, scientists operating this system have put it to work digesting human milk. And because every aspect of digestion can be finely tuned, they can speed up gastric emptying, lower certain enzymatic activities, and raise gastric pH—as per a preterm (relative to a term-born) infant’s system. The main question these scientists seek to answer is how pasteurizing milk by heating to 62.5 °C for 30 minutes alters how well it is digested. Read More...
David Dallas, University of California, Davis, USA
For over 200 million years, milk has co-evolved with mammalian infants to be nourishing and immunoprotective.
Scientists are now realizing that milk is not simply a mixture of basic nutritional building blocks, but rather a dynamic,
active and personal source of nourishment to the human infant. Fragments of milk proteins released during infant
digestion have an array of biological functions within the gut and systemically including opioid-like activity, immune
system modulation and antimicrobial action. These peptides are typically inactive within the sequence of the parent
protein...
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