Abstract
Background
The immune system of milk protects against infections and guides immune system development. A system-level understanding of milk immune activity is critical for research into infant infectious disease risk and lifelong health.
Research aim
To describe a protocol to characterize immune activity in human milk via in vitro stimulation for use in population-based (rather than clinical) research.
Methods
This study proceeded in two phases, each with a cross-sectional design. Human milk specimens were incubated for 24 hr at 37 °C in mammalian cell culture medium with stimuli (e.g.,
Results
Patterns were detectable across mother–child dyads: Interleukin-6 responses to stimuli were generally positively associated with child age and with maternal autoimmune disease.
Conclusions
Our method allows characterization of pro-inflammatory milk immune activity in vitro in population-based (rather than clinical) research settings. In vitro activity has a system-level interpretation and is likely to be of broad utility in global health research in settings with high infectious disease risk, where understanding the immune system of milk is critical to understanding maternal and child health.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
