Breast milk long-chain PUFA (LCPUFA) have been associated with changes in early life immune responses and may modulate T-cell function in infancy. We studied the effect of maternal fatty acid desaturase (FADS) genotype and breast milk LCPUFA levels on infants' blood T-cell profiles and ex vivo-produced cytokines after anti-CD3/CD28 stimulation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells in 6-month-ol...

The effect of human milk on B cell function was studied by using murine spleen cells stimulated with suboptimal doses of lipopolysaccharide. Cell free, defatted, filtered colostrum as well as mature breast milk showed an enhancing effect on B cell proliferation and generation of antibody secretion, but this was not seen with formula milk. The activity was heat sensitive and resisted overnight d...

BACKGROUND Mammary stem cells have been extensively studied as a system to delineate the pathogenesis and treatment of breast cancer. However, research on mammary stem cells requires tissue biopsies which limit the quantity of samples available. We have previously identified putative mammary stem cells in human breast milk, and here, we further characterised the cellular component of human brea...

Background and Objectives: Breast milk composition is affected by several factors such as maternal diet and body mass index. Milk fats include a major calorie content of the milk, which changes dramatically throughout the lactation. The aim of the present study was to assess breast milk fatty acid profile in overweight and obese mothers and its correlations with maternal body mass index. Mater...

HIV and AIDS infection are major public health problems in sub-Saharan Africa. is spread through contact with certain body fluids from a person HIV, such include; blood, semen, pre-seminal fluid, vaginal fluids, rectal breast milk. attacks destroys the CD4 cells

The antimicrobial properties of preterm and term breast milk cells were compared. They were similar in cell numbers and in the capacity to phagocytose and kill staphylococci. Interferon production on endotoxin challenge appeared to be higher in preterm cells. The antibacterial activity of breast milk cells was retained after storage at 4 degrees C for 24-48 hours. Cell numbers were unaffected b...

Breast feeding is known to protect an infant against gastrointestinal pathogens and epidemiological studies indicate that compared to breast fed infants, formula fed infants are at a greater risk of dying from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Many SIDS infants have symptoms of gastrointestinal infections prior to death and one gastrointestinal pathogen associated with SIDS is Clostridium pe...

BACKGROUND Extremely preterm infants are highly susceptible to bacterial infections but breast milk provides some protection. It is unknown if leukocyte numbers and subsets in milk differ between term and preterm breast milk. This study serially characterised leukocyte populations in breast milk of mothers of preterm and term infants using multicolour flow cytometry methods for extended differe...

Although mouse studies have demonstrated the presence of an effector memory population in nonlymphoid tissues, the phenotype of human CD8(+) T cells present in such compartments has not been characterized. Because of the relatively large number of CD8(+) T cells present in breast milk, we were able to characterize the phenotype of this cell population in HIV-infected and uninfected lactating wo...