Human breast milk supports the rapid growth the infant experiences in the early months. Moreover, the milk is assumed to be decisive for a healthy microbial colonization of the infant gut as milk contains HMOs, and minor milk peptides from the MFGM have also been shown to have a positive effect on bacterial strains.
Metabolomics represents a holistic and untargeted approach that aims at studying the complete set up metabolites present in a biological material, and metabolomics has proven to provide useful information on nutritional aspects of foods.
The MaInHealth cohort aims to determine the variability of breast milk nutrients by application of metabolomics, proteomics, glycomics and next-gen sequencing. Secondly, we aim to identify biological mechanisms for how breast milk nutrients are metabolised in the infants. Infants exclusively breast-feeding offer total compliance. Thus, we hypothesise that by deconstructing breast milk components and markers of infant metabolism through comprehensive analysis of infant urine and feces, we can deduce the bioactivity of breast milk nutrients.
The FinnBrain cohort offers human milk samples and rich meta-data, with the aim to describe how breast milk composition relates to child characteristics and health, including child obesity, atopic-related disorders, recurrent infections, chronic pains, functional disorders of the GI tract, brain development and cognition, socio-emotional development and brain structure and connectivity.
In this MSc project, we will identify the specific project and deliverables in collaboration.
