Project description:Human breast milk contains a diverse community of bacteria but factors that produce variation in the breast milk microbiome are largely unknown. We evaluated if 1) maternal factors including breastfeeding practices modified the diversity and abundance of bacterial communities in breast milk and 2) if subclinical mastitis (SCM), an asymptomatic inflammatory condition occurring during lactation, induced a distinctive microbiota signature.
Project description:We report the application of miRNA next generation sequencing (NGS) for the analysis of impact of processing on miRNA in human breast milk, donated by 3 volunteers. MiRNA content of total and exosomal fraction was compared between unprocessed milk and sample subjected to either Holder (thermal) pasteurization (HoP) or elevated pressure processing (HPP). NGS reads were mapped to miRBase in order to obtain miRNA counts. Then, we analyzed differences in the miRNA abundance and function between raw and processed material. It was observed that both processing methods reduce number of miRNA reads and HoP is significantly more detrimental to miRNA than HPP.
