Vizzari Giulia, Morniroli Daniela, Ceroni Federica, Verduci Elvira, Consales Alessandra, Colombo Lorenzo, Cerasani Jacopo, Mosca Fabio, Giannì Maria Lorella
Department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, University of Milan, Via Commenda 19, 20122 Milan, Italy.
Department of Pediatrics, Vittore Buzzi Children's Hospital, University of Milan, 20154 Milan, Italy.
Children (Basel). 2021 Sep 28;8(10):863. doi: 10.3390/children8100863.
Human breast milk not only has nutritional properties but also holds a functional role. It contains various bioactive factors (lactoferrin, lysozyme, leukocytes, immunoglobulins, cytokines, hormones, human milk oligosaccharides, microbiome, microRNAs and stem cells) shown to contribute to several short- and long-term health outcomes. Some of these factors appear to be involved in the infant's neuro-cognitive development, anti-oncogenic processes, cellular communication and differentiation. Furthermore, breast milk is increasingly recognized to have dynamic characteristics and to play a fundamental role in the cross-talking mother-neonate. This narrative review aims to provide a summary and an update on these bioactive substances, exploring their functions mainly on immunomodulation, microbiome and virome development. Although the knowledge about breast milk potentiality has significantly improved, leading to discovering unexpected functions, the exact mechanisms with which breast milk exercises its bioactivity have not been completely clarified. This can represent a fertile ground for exploring and understanding the complexity behind these functional elements to develop new therapeutic strategies.
人乳不仅具有营养特性，还具有功能性作用。它含有多种生物活性因子（乳铁蛋白、溶菌酶、白细胞、免疫球蛋白、细胞因子、激素、人乳寡糖、微生物群、微小RNA和干细胞），这些因子已被证明对多种短期和长期健康结果有贡献。其中一些因子似乎参与婴儿的神经认知发育、抗癌过程、细胞通讯和分化。此外，母乳越来越被认为具有动态特性，并在母婴交流中发挥着重要作用。这篇叙述性综述旨在对这些生物活性物质进行总结和更新，主要探讨它们在免疫调节、微生物群和病毒组发育方面的功能。尽管关于母乳潜力的知识有了显著提高，导致发现了意想不到的功能，但母乳发挥其生物活性的确切机制尚未完全阐明。这可能为探索和理解这些功能元件背后的复杂性以开发新的治疗策略提供了一片沃土。
