Human milk oligosaccharides (HMO) function as a prebiotic, enhance immune functions and support brain development for infants when fed mother's milk. CD BioGlyco has developed systematic solutions to provide clients with One-stop Solution for HMO Research.
HMOs are not digested by infants but act as prebiotics for the beneficial bacteria that shape the gut microbiome. Due to their structural similarity to certain intestinal mucosal cell surface glycans, HMO also acts as a decoy and disrupts the binding of microbial or viral lectins to host cell receptors, thereby preventing these organisms from infecting the host. Accumulating evidence suggests that HMOs modulate epithelial and immune responses and reduce excessive mucosal leukocyte infiltration and activation, thereby reducing the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis.
HMOs are resistant to digestive enzymes in infants and maintain their specific structural configuration through the proximal gut, which has been confirmed by several clinical studies. They will reach the distal gut as substrates fermented by specific gut microbiota such as Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, and especially Bifdobacterium spp.
Furthermore, depending on the intake of certain HMOs, some microbes capable of breaking down HMOs will predominate over others, which act as probiotics to shape the infant's gut microbiota. For example, the predominant presence of gut bacteria from the genus Bifidobacterium spp. Associated with breast milk containing higher levels of sialyllactose-N-tetraose b (LSTb), monofucosyl-N-hexose (MFLNH)-III, DSLNT, LNFP I, LNFP III, and LNFP V; whereas in human 2'-FL, lactose-N-hexose (LNH) and its two isomers found in milk favor the growth of Bacteroides spp.
Fig.1 Structure of LNH and Lacto-N-neotetraose (LNnH). (Ooi, et al., 2022)
CD BioGlyco provides a variety of effective methods for pLNnH analysis, including high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), NMR spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry (MS).
Taking the analysis of pLNnH based on HPLC-ESI-MS as an example, the analysis process is as follows.
An HPLC system coupled to an MS equipped with an electrospray ionization (ESI) source is used for analysis. pLNnH is quantified against standards of known purity.
Samples are defatted and proteins are separated. Reduction of extracted HMOs to sugar alcohol form. The product is then desalted and purified by solid phase extraction (SPE) using a non-porous graphitized carbon column (GCC).
HMOs are separated on an HPLC instrument equipped with an analytical column.
CD BioGlyco is committed to providing clients with high-quality HMO Profiling services. We provide HPLC, NMR, and MS technologies to analyze pLNnH. If you are interested in our services, please contact us for more details without any hesitation.
Reference:
