Perspective: The Role of Human Breast-Milk Extracellular Vesicles in Child Health and Disease

Abstract

Human breast milk (HM) contains multiple bioactive substances determining its impact on children's health. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are a heterogeneous group of secreted nanoparticles that are present in HM and may be partially responsible for its beneficial effects. The precise roles and content of EVs in HM remain largely unknown. To examine this, we performed a short narrative review on the literature focusing on HM EVs to contextualize the available data, followed by a scoping review of MEDLINE and Embase databases. We identified 424 nonduplicate citations with 19 original studies included. In this perspective, we summarize the evidence around HM EVs, highlight some theoretical considerations based on existing evidence, and provide an overview of some challenges associated with the complexity and heterogeneity of EV research. We consider how the existing data from HM studies conform to the minimal information for studies of EVs (MISEV) guidelines. Across the studies a variety of research methods were utilized involving both bench-based and translational methods, and a range of different EV contents were examined including RNA, proteins, and glycopeptides. We observed a variety of health outcomes in these studies, including allergy and atopy, necrotizing enterocolitis, and HIV. While some promising results have been demonstrated, the heterogeneity in outcomes of interest, methodological limitations, and relatively small number of studies in the field make comparison between studies or further translational work problematic. To date, no studies have examined normative values of HM EVs in a large, diverse population or with respect to potentially important influencing factors such as timing (hind- vs. foremilk), stage (colostrum vs. mature milk), and infant age (preterm vs. term), which makes extrapolation from bench or "basic" research impossible. Future research should focus on addressing the current inadequacies in the literature and utilize MISEV guidelines to inform study design.

Keywords: breast milk; exosomes; extracellular vesicles; human milk; microvesicles; nanovesicles.

FIGURE 1

Summary of the role of EVs: HM EVs contain cargos (i.e., miRNA, proteins, metabolites, and glycopeptides). These EV cargos likely have a biological impact on neighboring cells and may impact health outcomes in children. EV, extracellular vesicle; HM, human milk.