Immunomodulatory Constituents Of Human Breast Milk And Their Relevance To Infant Bronchiolitis

Objectve:Immune components of breast milk can through genetic and breastfeeding affectthe offspring of the immune system, To determine whether a mother’s immune statusand breastfeeding practices are related to development of bronchiolitis in her infantchild.Methods:A total of20bronchiolitis patients and their mothers, plus an additional11healthy controls subjects and their mothers, were enrolled in this study. Thefrequencies of T, B, and NK cells in samples of blood obtained from bronchiolitispatients and breast milk obtained from the mothers were determined using flowcytometry. The concentrations of IgG and IgD in the serum of individual patients andthe breast milk of mothers of bronchiolitis patients and healthy subjects weredetermined by ELISA.Results:There was no significant difference in the frequency of T cells, B cells, and NKcells in samples of breast milk obtained from the mothers of bronchiolitis patients andhealthy children. The mothers of bronchiolitis patients had fewer IgG+B cells in theirbreast milk when compared to the mothers of healthy children.Significantly lower numbers of CD3+T cells and CD8+T cells, but higher numbers of CD4+T cells and higher CD4+/CD8+cell ratios were observed in bloodsamples obtained from bronchiolitis patients compared to those obtained from normalcontrol subjects. Additionally, higher numbers of CD19+B cells and IgD+B cellswere found in blood samples from bronchiolitis patients compared to samples fromhealthy subjects. There was no significant difference in the frequency of NK cells inblood samples obtained from patients and healthy children. Blood samples obtainedfrom bronchiolitis patients had higher numbers of IgG+B and IgD+B cellscompared to samples obtained from healthy control subjects.Conclusions:Our data suggest that the mothers of bronchiolitis patients had fewer IgG+Bcells in their breast milk when compared to the mothers of healthychildren.Immunomodulatory constituents of human breast milkmay affect the patient’simmune function. The bronchiolitis patients had a disorder of the immune system.