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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Immunol.
Sec. Nutritional Immunology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1463463
This article is part of the Research Topic Human Milk, Nutrition and Infant Development View all 26 articles

Associations between human milk EV-miRNAs and oligosaccharide concentrations in human milk

Provisionally accepted
Elizabeth Holzhausen Elizabeth Holzhausen 1,2William B. Patterson William B. Patterson 1*Benjamin H. Wong Benjamin H. Wong 3Sewan Kim Sewan Kim 1*Allison Kupsco Allison Kupsco 4Caitlin G. Howe Caitlin G. Howe 5Lars Bode Lars Bode 6Michael Goran Michael Goran 7Tanya Alderete Tanya Alderete 8*
  • 1 University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, United States
  • 2 Johns Hopkins Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
  • 3 University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colorado, United States
  • 4 Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York City, New York, United States
  • 5 Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, United States
  • 6 Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation Mother-Milk-Infant Center of Research Excellence, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States
  • 7 Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States
  • 8 Johns Hopkins Primary Care Policy Center, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Human milk contains human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) and microRNAs (miRNAs), which are key bioactive components. HMOs are indigestible carbohydrates that impact infant growth and development. miRNAs are small, non-coding RNAs that regulate post-transcriptional gene expression. miRNAs are abundant in human milk and can be contained in extracellular vesicles (EVs). There is evidence that miRNAs are synthesized in the mammary epithelium and may influence mammary gland development and milk synthesis. However, the relationships between miRNAs and HMOs have yet to be fully characterized. This study examined the associations between 210 human milk EV-miRNAs and 19 HMOs in a cohort of 98 Latina mothers. HMO measures included summary measures and concentrations of 19 HMOs. Relationships between EV-miRNAs and HMOs were examined using principal components analysis and associations between individual EV-miRNAs and HMOs were assessed. Overall patterns of EV-miRNA levels, summarized using principal components, were associated with HMO summary measures and concentrations. Levels of individual EV-miRNAs were associated with HMO summary measures and individual concentrations of 2’FL, 3FL, 3’SL, 6’SL, FLNH, LNFP I, and LNH. Results from this study suggest that human milk EV-miRNAs are associated with the concentration of HMOs, which may have important effects on infant growth and development.

    Keywords: microRNA, human milk (HM), human milk oligosaccharides, extracellular vesicles, EV-microRNAs

    Received: 11 Jul 2024; Accepted: 17 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Holzhausen, Patterson, Wong, Kim, Kupsco, Howe, Bode, Goran and Alderete. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    William B. Patterson, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, United States
    Sewan Kim, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, United States
    Tanya Alderete, Johns Hopkins Primary Care Policy Center, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 21205, Maryland, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.