Breast milk contains stem cells
Monday, 11 February 2008
By Catherine Madden
Mammary stem cells (red/blue) and differentiated
adult mammary cells (green) isolated from human
breast milk. The Perth scientist who made the world-first discovery
that human breast milk contains stem cells is confident that within
five years scientists will be harvesting them to research treatment
for conditions as far-reaching as spinal injuries, diabetes and
Parkinson's disease.
But what Dr Mark Cregan is excited about right now is the promise
that his discovery could be the start of many more exciting
revelations about the potency of breast milk.
He believes that it not only meets all the nutritional needs of a
growing infant but contains key markers that guide his or her
development into adulthood.
"We already know how breast milk provides for the baby's nutritional
needs, but we are only just beginning to understand that it probably
performs many other functions," says Dr Cregan, a molecular biologist
at The University of Western Australia.
He says that, in essence, a new mother's mammary glands take over
from the placenta to provide the development guidance to ensure a
baby's genetic destiny is fulfilled.
"It is setting the baby up for the perfect development,
already know that babies who are breast fed have an IQ advantage and
that there's a raft of other health benefits. Researchers also
believe that the protective effects of being breast fed continue well
into adult life.
"The point is that many mothers see milks as identical – formula milk
and breast milk look the same so they must be the same. But we know
now that they are quite different and a lot of the effects of breast
milk versus formula don't become apparent for decades. Formula
companies have focussed on matching breast milk's nutritional
qualities but formula can never provide the developmental guidance."
It was Dr Cregan's interest in infant health that led him to
investigate the complex cellular components of human milk. "I was
looking at this vast complexity of cells and I thought, `No one knows
anything about them'."
His hunch was that if breast milk contains all these cells, surely it
has their precursors, too?
His team cultured cells from human breast milk and found a population
that tested positive for the stem cell marker, nestin. Further
analysis showed that a side population of the stem cells were of
multiple lineages with the potential to differentiate into multiple
cell types. This means the cells could potentially be "reprogrammed"
to form many types of human tissue.
He presented his research at the end of January to 200 of the world's
leading experts in the field at the International Conference of the
Society for Research on Human Milk and Lactation in Perth.
"We have shown these cells have all the physical characteristics of
stem cells. What we will do next is to see if they behave like stem
cells," he says.
If so, they promise to provide researchers with an entirely ethical
means of harvesting stem cells for research without the debate that
has dogged the harvesting of cells from embryos.
Further research on immune cells, which have also been found in
breast milk and have already been shown to survive the baby's
digestive process, could provide a pathway to developing targets to
beat certain viruses or bacteria.
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A story provided by ScienceNetwork WA - Activate your connections to
science. For permission to reproduce this article please contact
ScienceNetwork.
http://www.sciencea
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StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:
Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/
Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123
The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
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