Human milk glycobiome and its impact on the infant gastrointestinal microbiota

Human milk contains an unexpected abundance and diversity of complex oligosaccharides apparently indigestible by the developing infant and instead targeted to its cognate gastrointestinal microbiota. Recent advances in mass spectrometry-based tools have provided a view of the oligosaccharide structures produced in milk across stages of lactation and among human mothers. One postulated function for these oligosaccharides is to enrich a specific "healthy" microbiota containing bifidobacteria, a genus commonly observed in the feces of breast-fed infants. Isolated culture studies indeed show selective growth of infant-borne bifidobacteria on milk oligosaccharides or core components therein. Parallel glycoprofiling…

• UD
  U.S. Department of Agriculture
• CD
  California Dairy Research Foundation
• NI
  National Institutes of Health

  Awards: ES11269, ES02710, 1R01HD061923
• NI
  National Institute of Child Health and Human Development