The microbiota plays a key role early in life for the development of the immune system. Dietary weaning (the transition from a milk only diet to a diversified diet) induces a vast expansion of the microbiota and in response, a vigorous immune reaction termed the “weaning reaction” (WR). Early life treatment with antibiotics interferes with this early life immune response to the microbiota, and diets that lack fibers or that are excessively rich in lipids, lead to pathological imprinting later in life.
Study Aim
To investigate how milk oligosaccharides are processed by select lactic bacteria into metabolites that affect neonatal immunological imprinting.
Scientific Approach
Using mouse model of neonatal immunological imprinting to test the modulation potential of milk oligosaccharides and lactic bacteria.
Expected Outcomes
This study’s results will pave the way for preventive biotic solutions to modulate neonatal immunological imprinting, and for the prevention of inflammatory pathologies, and the eventual optimisation of responses to infection and vaccination during infancy and later in life.
