State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, Jiangsu 214122, China.
International Joint Laboratory on Food Safety, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China.
J Agric Food Chem. 2022 Apr 20;70(15):4534-4547. doi: 10.1021/acs.jafc.2c01101. Epub 2022 Apr 6.
Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) act as the important prebiotics and display many unique health effects for infants. Lacto--neotetraose (LNnT), an abundant HMO, attracts increasing attention because of its unique beneficial effects to infants and great commercial importance. It occurs in all groups of human milk, but the concentration generally decreases gradually with the lactation period. It has superior prebiotic property for infants, and its other health effects have also been verified, including being immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, preventing necrotizing enterocolitis, antiadhesive antimicrobials, antiviral activity, and promoting maturation of intestinal epithelial cells. Safety evaluation and clinical trial studies suggest that LNnT is safe and well-tolerant for infants. It has been commercially added as a functional ingredient in infant formula. LNnT can be synthesized chemical, enzymatic, or cell factory approachs, among which the metabolic engineering-based cell factory synthesis is considered to be the most practical and effective. In this article, the occurrence and physiological effects of LNnT were reviewed in detail, the safety evaluation and regulation status of LNnT were described, various approaches to LNnT synthesis were comprehensively summarized and compared, and the future perspectives of LNnT-related studies were provided.
人乳寡糖(HMOs)是重要的益生元,对婴儿具有许多独特的健康作用。乳-新四糖(LNnT)是一种丰富的 HMO,因其对婴儿的独特有益作用和巨大的商业重要性而受到越来越多的关注。它存在于所有组别的人乳中,但浓度通常随着哺乳期逐渐降低。它对婴儿具有优异的益生元特性,其其他健康作用也已得到验证,包括免疫调节、抗炎、预防坏死性小肠结肠炎、抗黏附抗菌、抗病毒活性和促进肠上皮细胞成熟。安全性评估和临床试验研究表明,LNnT 对婴儿是安全且耐受良好的。它已被商业化添加为婴儿配方奶粉的功能性成分。LNnT 可以通过化学、酶或细胞工厂方法合成,其中基于代谢工程的细胞工厂合成被认为是最实用和有效的方法。本文详细综述了 LNnT 的发生和生理作用,描述了 LNnT 的安全性评估和监管状况,全面总结和比较了 LNnT 合成的各种方法,并提供了 LNnT 相关研究的未来展望。