Meeting Abstract
Breast milk has been shown to have beneficial effects toward signal species that signify good infant gut health. One of these species is Bifidobacterium infantis, which is among the predominant species in the guts of breast-fed infants. We also examined two other bacterial species, Enterococcus faecalis, which is found in the guts of both breastfed and formula-fed infants, and Staphylococcus aureus, the abundance of which was determined to have a positive correlation with the total human milk oligosaccharide (HMO) content. HMOs, the third most abundant component in human milk, has been shown to have prebiotic effects on B. infantis. However, it has also been shown that E. faecalis is a poor metabolizer of HMOs, while there are relatively few pieces of literature discussing the ability of S. aureus to metabolize HMOs. We examined the effects of breast milk versus formula on the growth of these three species. Cultures were grown in Hungate tubes in order to simulate the anaerobic conditions of the human gut over an 8-hr time course with their turbidity measured every hour. There was a statistically significant difference (p< 0.05) in B. infantis growth between the breast milk and the formula media, with more growth observed in the breast milk media. In contrast, there was no significant difference (p> 0.05) in E. faecalis growth between the two media. Interestingly, significant difference (p<0.05) was found in S. aureus growth between the two media, with more growth found in the breast milk media, but only after hour 5. Moving forward, mothers should try to breastfeed their infants and formula production should begin to include HMOs in order to promote optimal infant health.
