Publications by authors named "Jane A Mullaney"

Our dietary choices not only affect our body but also shape the microbial community inhabiting our large intestine. The colonic microbiota strongly influences our physiology, playing a crucial role in both disease prevention and development. Hence, dietary strategies to modulate colonic microbes have gained notable attention.

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The transition from breastmilk to complementary foods is critical for maturing the colonic microbiota of infants. Dietary choices at weaning can lead to long-lasting microbial changes, potentially influencing health later in life. However, the weaning phase remains underexplored in colonic microbiome research, and the current understanding of how complementary foods impact the infant's colonic microbiota is limited.

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Background & Aims: Inadequate dietary fibre (DF) intake is associated with suboptimal gut function and increased risk of several human diseases. Bread is commonly consumed and is ideal to incorporate cereal bran to increase DF content. No human studies have investigated the effects of defatted rice bran (DRB) in bread, which has triple the DF of white bread, purported hypo-allergenicity and a unique nutrient profile, as a dietary intervention in healthy adults.

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Background: Age-related changes can lead to dietary insufficiency in older adults. The inclusion of high-quality, nutrient-dense foods such as ruminant milks can significantly improve health outcomes. However, many older adults worldwide do not meet daily milk intake recommendations because of digestive discomfort and health concerns.

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The transition from breastmilk to solid foods (weaning) is a decisive stage for the development of the colonic microbiota. However, little is known about how complementary foods influence the composition and function of the colonic microbiota in infants. This systematic review collected evidence of the effect of individual foods on the fecal microbiota of weaning infants (4-12 months old) using five databases: PubMed, CENTRAL, Scopus, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect.

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Background: The introduction of complementary foods during the first year of life influences the diversity of the gut microbiome. How this diversity affects immune development and health is unclear.

Objective: This study evaluates the effect of consuming kūmara or kūmara with added banana powder (resistant starch) compared to a reference control at 4 months post randomization on the prevalence of respiratory tract infections and the development of the gut microbiome.

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Background: Inadequate dietary fiber (DF) intake is associated with several human diseases. Bread is commonly consumed, and its DF content can be increased by incorporating defatted rice bran (DRB).

Objective: This first human study on DRB-fortified bread primarily aims to assess the effect of DRB-fortified bread on the relative abundance of a composite of key microbial genera and species in fecal samples.

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The introduction of solid foods to infants, also known as weaning, is a critical point for the development of the complex microbial community inhabiting the human colon, impacting host physiology in infancy and later in life. This research investigated the impact of food-breastmilk combinations on growth and metabolite production by colonic microbes of New Zealand weaning infants using the metagenome-scale metabolic model named Microbial Community. Eighty-nine foods were individually combined with breastmilk, and the 12 combinations with the strongest influence on the microbial production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and branched-chain fatty acids (BCFAs) were identified.

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Ruminants' milk is commonly used for supplying nutrients to infants when breast milk is unavailable or limited. Previous studies have highlighted the differences between ruminants' milk composition, digestion, absorption, and fermentation. However, whether consuming different ruminants' milk impact the appearance of the circulatory blood metabolites in the early postnatal life is not well understood.

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This study investigated the effect of heating (63°C/30 min or 75°C/15 s) and drying (spray-drying or freeze-drying) on plasmin, cathepsin D, and elastase activities in bovine, ovine, and caprine milk, compared to non-dried raw milk counterparts. Protease activities and protein hydrolysis were assessed before and after in vitro infant digestion with or without gastric and pancreatic enzymes. At 75°C/15 s, plasmin activity in caprine and ovine milk decreased (69-75%, p<0.

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Intestinal organoid technology has revolutionized our approach to cell culture due in part to their three-dimensional structures being more like the native tissue from which they were derived with respect to cellular composition and architecture. For this reason, organoids are becoming the new gold standard for undertaking intestinal epithelial cell research. Unfortunately, their otherwise advantageous three-dimensional geometry prevents easy access to the apical epithelium, which is a major limitation when studying interactions between dietary or microbial components and host tissues.

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The gastrointestinal (GI) microbiota has co-evolved with the host in an intricate relationship for mutual benefit, however, inappropriate development of this relationship can have detrimental effects. The developing GI microbiota plays a vital role during the first 1,000 days of postnatal life, during which occurs parallel development and maturation of the GI tract, immune system, and brain. Several factors such as mode of delivery, gestational age at birth, exposure to antibiotics, host genetics, and nutrition affect the establishment and resultant composition of the GI microbiota, and therefore play a role in shaping host development.

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While infant formula is usually bovine milk-based, interest in other ruminant milk-based formulas is growing. However, whether different ruminant milk treatments with varying nutrient compositions influence the infant's brain development remains unknown. The aim was to determine the effects of consuming bovine, caprine, or ovine milk on brain gene expression in the early postnatal period using a pig model of the human infant.

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The infant gut microbiome progresses in composition and function during the introduction of solid foods throughout the first year of life. The purpose of this study was to characterize changes in healthy infant gut microbiome composition, metagenomic functional capacity, and associated metabolites over the course of the complementary feeding period. Fecal samples were obtained at three 'snapshot' timepoints from infants participating in the 'Nourish to Flourish' pilot study: before the introduction of solid foods at approximately 4 months of age, after introducing solid foods at 9 months of age, and after continued diet diversification at 12 months of age.

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Proteases present in milk are heat-sensitive, and their activities increase or decrease depending on the intensity of the thermal treatment applied. The thermal effects on the protease activity are well-known for bovine milk but poorly understood for ovine and caprine milk. This study aimed to determine the non-specific and specific protease activities in casein and whey fractions isolated from raw bovine, ovine, and caprine milk collected in early lactation, and to determine the effects of low-temperature, long-time (63°C for 30 min) and high-temperature, short-time (85°C for 5 min) treatments on protease activities within each milk fraction.

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The development of alternative in vitro culture methods has increased in the last decade as three-dimensional organoids of various tissues, including those of the small and large intestines. Due to their multicellular composition, organoids offer advantages over traditionally used immortalized or primary cell lines. However, organoids must be accurate models of their tissues of origin.

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Emerging evidence suggests that alterations in the development of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract during the early postnatal period can influence brain development and vice-versa. It is increasingly recognized that communication between the GI tract and brain is mainly driven by neural, endocrine, immune, and metabolic mediators, collectively called the gut-brain axis (GBA). Changes in the GBA mediators occur in response to the developmental changes in the body during this period.

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Background: Weaning is a period of marked physiological change. The introduction of solid foods and the changes in milk consumption are accompanied by significant gastrointestinal, immune, developmental, and microbial adaptations. Defining a reduced number of infections as the desired health benefit for infants around weaning, we identified in silico (i.

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The microbial community making up the gut microbiota can profoundly influence intestinal homeostasis and immune system development, and is believed to influence the development of complex diseases including type 1 diabetes (T1D). T1D susceptible nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice have been shown to harbor a distinct microbiota to disease-protected mice. We hypothesized that the T1D susceptible genetic background of NOD mice would be resistant to the introduction of a C57BL/6-derived microbiota.

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Objective: Dysbiosis of the gut microbiota has been linked to disease pathogenesis in type 1 diabetes, yet the functional consequences to the host of this dysbiosis are unknown. We investigated the functional interactions between the microbiota and the host associated with type 1 diabetes disease risk.

Research Design And Methods: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of stool samples from subjects with recent-onset type 1 diabetes ( = 33), islet autoantibody-positive subjects ( = 17), low-risk autoantibody-negative subjects ( = 29), and healthy subjects ( = 22).

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Following publication of the original article [1] it came to the attention of the Production Editor that Figs. 1 and 2 had not been replaced with the newly revised figures supplied by the authors (the originals being unusable due to poor quality image and text).

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Background: Dysbiosis of the gut microbiota has been implicated in the pathogenesis of many autoimmune conditions including type 1 diabetes (T1D). It is unknown whether changes in the gut microbiota observed in T1D are due to environmental drivers, genetic risk factors, or both. Here, we have performed an analysis of associations between the gut microbiota and T1D genetic risk using the non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse model of T1D and the TwinsUK cohort.

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Glucosinolates from the genus Brassica can be converted into bioactive compounds known to induce phase II enzymes, which may decrease the risk of cancers. Conversion via hydrolysis is usually by the brassica enzyme myrosinase, which can be inactivated by cooking or storage. We examined the potential of three beneficial bacteria, Lactobacillus plantarum KW30, Lactococcus lactis subsp.

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Polyhydroxyalkanoates are biodegradable biocompatible polymers naturally produced by various bacteria and archaea. Biotechnological production in transgenic plants has already been demonstrated with efficient polyhydroxybutyrate production requiring targeting of the enzymes to the chloroplasts. Three enzymes are required to establish the polyhydroxybutyrate biosynthesis pathway in non-naturally producing microorganisms or plants.

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