Absolute quantification of eight human milk oligosaccharides in breast milk to evaluate their concentration profiles and associations with infants’ neurodevelopmental outcomes

Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) have been positively associated with child neurodevelopment in some cohort studies. However, there is a lack of consistency in the association between HMOs and benefits to infants’ brains. Moreover, the quantification methods for HMOs have not yet been standardized. In this study, we developed a quantification method for evaluating eight HMOs (2′-fucosyllactose [2′-FL], 3′-fucosyllactose [3′-FL], 3′-sialyllactose [3′-SL], 6′-sialyllactose [6′-SL], lactosialyltetrasaccharide a [LSTa], lactosialyltetrasaccharide b [LSTb], lactosialyltetrasaccharide c [LSTc], and disialyllacto-N-tetraose [DSLNT]) in breast milk. After validating the method, we applied it to 1-month breast milk samples (n = 150) from the Tohoku Medical Megabank Project Birth and Three-Generation Cohort Study to assess HMO profiles in breast milk and their possible association with changes in head circumference z-score (ΔHCZ) and neurodevelopmental scores of children (as measured by the Ages and Stages Questionnaire, Third Edition). The validation demonstrated that the method had relative standard deviation ≤ 12.7% of precision and 79.5–110.9% of accuracy. Using this method, eight HMO levels (2′-FL, 0–4.74 mg/mL; 3′-FL, 0.02–1.52 mg/mL; 3′-SL, 0.07–0.32 mg/mL; 6′-SL, 0.01–0.70 mg/mL; LSTa, 0.002–0.043 mg/mL; LSTb, 0.02–0.31 mg/mL; LSTc, 0.001–0.47 mg/mL; and DSLNT, 0.09–0.71 mg/mL [min–max, all participants]) and the ratio of low secretors (16.0%) in the Japanese cohort were obtained. The obtained HMO levels in breast milk were subjected to multivariate analysis to screen for HMOs showing a positive association with ΔHCZ and neurodevelopmental scores. The results proposed that ΔHCZ was positively associated with LSTb and 2′-FL levels, whereas neurodevelopmental scores were positively associated with 2′-FL levels (among all participants) and 3′-SL and DSLNT levels (among secretor participants). This study showed that the developed method provides HMO profiles in Japanese breast milk, as well as additional information on the associations between specific HMOs and neurodevelopment, reinforcing the sum of evidence for the role of HMOs in the brain.