Comprehensive Human Milk Patterns Are Related to Infant Growth and Allergy in the CHMP Study.

Scope: The aim of the present study is to identify human milk pattern using multi-omics datasets and to explore association between patterns, infant growth, and allergy using data from the Chinese Human Milk Project (CHMP) study.
Methods and Results: Three patterns are identified from integrative analysis of proteome, lipidome, and glycome profiles of 143 mature human milk samples. Factor 1 is positively associated with 128 proteins, phospholipids, and human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) including lacto N-neohexaose (LNnH) and lacto-N-difucohexaose II (LNDFH II); factor 2 is negatively associated with as ₁ -casein, phospholipids while positively associates with HMOs including LNnH, lactosialyl tetrasaccharide c (LSTc), and 2'-fucosyllactose (2'FL); factor 3 is positively associated with lysophospholipids while negatively associates with 27 proteins, triglycerides with two saturated fatty acids, 6'-sialyllactose (6'SL) and 2'FL. In general, factor 1 and factor 2 are associated with slower while factor 3 is associated with faster growth rate (p < 0.044). One unit higher in loadings of factor 2 is associated with 34% lower risk of allergies (p ≤ 0.017). Associations are not significant after adjustment for city except for factor 1.
Conclusions: Three possible human milk patterns with varying degree of stability are identified. Future work is needed to understand these patterns in terms of generalization, biologic mechanisms, and genotype influences.
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