Study tracks human milk nutrients in infant microbiome

Updated:5 years, 1 month ago

New Delhi, Sep 03 (ANI): A new study in mice helps explain why gut microbiomes of breastfed infants can differ greatly from those of formula-fed infants. The study, 'Dietary Sphinganine Is Selectively Assimilated by Members of the Mammalian Gut Microbiome,' was published in July in the Journal of Lipid Research. Sphinganine from milk Johnson Lab/Provided A new technique allows researchers to track specific nutrients as they are taken up by gut microbes in a mouse's digestive tract. The image shows certain microbes (red) taking in a nutrient common in human milk called sphinganine; blue microbes have not taken it in. The paper describes an innovative technique developed at Cornell to track the fate of metabolites - nutrients formed in or necessary for metabolism - through a mouse's digestive tract and identify how they interact with specific gut microbes."We think the methods are expandable to many different microbiome systems," said senior author Elizabeth Johnson, assistant professor of nutritional sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

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