ISAAA June 20, 2024

A study led by scientists from the University of California Berkeley, and the University of California, Davis demonstrated the potential of genetically engineered plants to produce prebiotic sugars found in human breast milk. The findings of the study, published in Nature Food, could provide significant insights into producing a healthier, non-dairy plant milk alternative for babies.

Around 75% of newborn children around the world drink infant formula during the first six months of their lives. However, formula milk does not replicate the nutritional value of human breast milk due to the prebiotic sugar molecules that are difficult to manufacture. With this, the study team genetically engineered genes responsible for creating human milk oligosaccharides. These genetically engineered genes were introduced to Nicotiana benthamiana plant to produce 11 known human milk oligosaccharides, along with a variety of other complex sugars with similar linkage patterns.

“We made all three major groups of human milk oligosaccharides,” said study senior author Patrick Shih, an Assistant Professor of Plant and Microbial Biology and an Investigator at UC Berkeley's Innovative Genomics Institute. “To my knowledge, no one has ever demonstrated that you could make all three of these groups simultaneously in a single organism.” The study also found that the cost of producing human milk oligosaccharides from plants at an industrial scale would likely be cheaper than using microbial platforms.

For more information, read the press release from the University of California, Berkeley.