Publications by authors named "Nikhila Yerabandi"
Article Synopsis
- Human milk is essential for infant nourishment, but there's limited understanding of how its composition affects infant health.
- A study examined the relationships between maternal genetics, milk gene expression, and the infant microbiome in 310 breastfeeding mother-infant pairs, identifying 482 genetic loci linked to milk characteristics.
- Findings revealed connections between milk components, like interleukin-6, and the gut bacteria of infants, highlighting the importance of genetics in lactation and its impact on maternal and infant health.
Background: Understanding how human milk impacts growth requires valid analytical methods for quantifying the composition. Lactose, the most abundant constituent in human milk and a predominant source of energy, is often assessed using methods borrowed from the bovine dairy industry. However, the carbohydrate matrices of bovine and human milk are quite different, especially as they relate to human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), each with a terminal lactose unit that may influence analytical methods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Human milk is a vital source of nutrition and contains various bioactive components essential for infant health, yet the factors influencing its composition are not fully understood.
- This study analyzed data from 242 breastfeeding mother-infant pairs using multi-omic profiling to explore the relationships between maternal genetics, milk gene expression, and the infant's gut microbiome.
- Key findings include the identification of 487 genetic loci affecting milk gene expression, which could relate to breast cancer risk and milk oligosaccharide levels, along with connections between milk composition and the infant's gut health, particularly inflammation-related genes and gut microbiome abundance.