Peptidome analysis of human skim milk in term and preterm milk

The abundant proteins in human milk have been well characterized and are known to provide nutritional, protective, and developmental advantages to both term and preterm infants. Due to the difficulties associated with detection technology of the peptides, the expression of the peptides present in human milk is not known widely. In recent years, peptidome analysis has received increasing attention. In this report, the analysis of endogenous peptides in human milk was done by mass spectrometry. A method was also developed by our researchers, which can be used in the extraction of peptide from human milk. Analysis of the extracts by LC-MS/MS resulted in the detection of 1000-3000 Da peptide-like features. Out of these, 419 peptides were identified by MS/MS. The identified peptides were found to originate from 34 proteins, of which several have been reported. Analysis of the peptides' cleavage sites showed that the peptides are cleaved with regulations. This may reflect the protease activity and distribution in human body, and also represent the biological state of the tissue and provide a fresh source for biomarker discovery. Isotope dimethyl labeling analysis was also used to test the effects of premature delivery on milk protein composition in this study. Differences in peptides expression between breast milk in term milk (38-41 weeks gestation) and preterm milk (28-32 weeks gestation) were investigated in this study. 41 Peptides in these two groups were found expressed differently. 23 Peptides were present at higher levels in preterm milk, and 18 were present at higher levels in term milk.