Bacterial Community of Breast Milk in Breastfeeding Women Using Culture-Dependent and Culture-Independent Approaches.

This study aimed to analyze bacterial communities in breast milk obtained from five breastfeeding women. Culture-dependent and culture-independent methods were used to analyze microbial communities. Total bacterial count of breast milk determined using plate count agar ranged from 3.3 × 10 ± 3.5 × 10 colony forming unit (CFU)/g to 1.7 × 10 ± 3.5 × 10 CFU/g, with a pH between 6.4 and 6.8. Only three species, (17 out of 160 strains; 10.63%), (118 strains; 73.75%), and (25 strains; 15.63%), belong to the phylum Bacillota were detected by culture-dependent analysis. Microbial communities analyzed via pyrosequencing revealed greater diversity compared to the culture-dependent analysis. At the phylum level, Bacillota accounted for 60.9% of the microbial community. At the genus level, (24.57%), (22.93%), and (8.76%) were dominant genera. While pyrosequencing demonstrated greater microbial diversity than the agar plate culture method, identified microbes might lack information or include many unculturable microbes. Most of all, considering the low total bacterial count averaging 7.2 × 10 CFU/g, further research is needed to determine the significance of microbial presence in breast milk.