Milk sugar for healthy baby foods
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- Even infants that are not breastfed could soon be drinking health-promoting human milk sugars derived from natural breast milk. The special substance is manufactured by bioengineers at the company Jennewein. Source: Jennewein Biotechnologie GmbH
15.01.2014 -
A rich blend nutrients and natural health-promoting substances, it’s not surprising that breast milk is considered the ideal foodstuff for babies. A vital ingredient in this mammarial cocktail is human milk sugar. Among other functions, these promote the development of the intestinal flora and protect the newborn against infections. Manufacturers of baby foods are now hoping that non-breastfed infants could also benefit from such a functional additive in their future products. In years of work, the bioengineers at Jennewein Biotechnologie GmbH have developed a procedure for the manufacture of such sugar molecules on an industrial scale. Thereby, microbes genetically converted into cell factories are used to produce the vital oligosaccharide fucosyllactose. The BMBF has supported the family-run company with around €1.1 million through the funding measure BioChancePlus. Many well-known baby food manufacturers now count among the company’s customers.
For newborns, breast milk contains an invigorating and indispensable mix of sugar molecules. In addition to lactose, which serves as an energy source, there are up to twelve grams of human milk oligosaccharides (HMO) swimming about in one litre of breast milk. In these oligosaccharides are more than one hundred different complex polysaccharides. The majority – about 30 percent – is made up of so-called fucosyllactose.
Lactose molecules act as decoys
Studies conducted in children suggest that human milk sugars – namely lactose – exert a prebiotic effect and help in the development of the young intestinal flora. Moreover, a high fucosyllactose content in breast milk decreases the risk of diarrheal diseases in neonates, as well as of viral and bacterial infections. One reason for this is that the sugar in the milk bears a resemblance to the sugar antennas on the envelope of somatic cells. When viruses or bacteria gain access to the digestive tract, they dock to these sugars antennas in order to attack the cells. “The fucosyllactose sugar from the mother's milk act much like molecular decoys,” says Stefan Jennewein, managing director of Jennewein Biotechnologie GmbH. The fucosyllactose are very good at driving – or ‘intercepting’ – the pathogens from the milk. As soon as a pathogen has bound to the fucosyllactose, it is flushed out of the body before its infectious effect can progress.
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Sought-after accessory for baby milk formula
For a long time, manufacturers of baby food have been looking for ways to industrially produce human milk sugar, with the aim of using these to enrich their food products. Set to benefit above all from such additives are non-breastfed infants. On the other hand, as a result of their complex molecular structure it has been impossible to date to artificially produce human milk sugars in sufficient quantities, meaning that no fucosyllactose has ever been added to baby food or related products. Now, in years of work, the team at Jennewein Biotechnologie GmbH has successfully developed a biotech manufacturing process to produce the desired substance. To do this, the researchers genetically reengineered bacteria to turn them into sugar-cell factories. In large production tanks, the microorganisms are fed with carbohydrates that derive from renewable resources. “The microbes release the fucosyllactose in the nutrient solution,” explains Jennewein.
As effective as the natural model
From 2008 to 2012, the company was supported by the BMBF with around €1.1 million in the framework of the BioChancePlus initiative. This funding was used to optimise the production process. The researchers are again funded to the tune of €1 million up to 2015 in a new project of the BMBF SME Innovative funding measure. The objective here is to identify new glycosyltransferases that could be used to produce further human milk sugars via microbial fermentation. “We want to use this approach to manufacture the majority of known human milk sugars,” says Jennewein. The biotechnological process is not only sustainable but also ensures the required product safety. “Ultimately, our additives must meet the highest quality standards for baby food,” says Jennewein.
| The Jennewein family company |
Click here to visit the website of Jennewein Biotechnologie GmbH, which is headquartered in Rheinbreitbach. |
Together with doctors at the Clinic for Child and Adolescent Medicine in Mannheim, the Rheinbreitbach-based scientists have demonstrated that the bioengineered fucosyllactose does indeed function as effectively as the natural model. As they report in the journal Nutrition Research (2013, Vol. 33, p.831), in cell culture experiments the biotechnologically produced milk sugar repelled harmful bacteria from human breast milk as efficiently as natural milk sugar. Clinical studies are being planned, says the biotechnologist Jennewein.
Expanding production capacity
These data and aspects are also of great interest to numerous manufacturers of baby foods – the typical Jennewein Biotechnologie GmbH customers. Two years ago, the company, which currently has 25 employees on its books, made headlines with an exclusive partnership with the US corporation Pfizer. In the meantime, Pfizer has sold its Nutrition arm to the Swiss consumer goods company Nestlé. “This marked the end of the cooperation. We now offer our human milk sugar non-exclusively to all interested parties,” explains Jennewein. With this in mind, the medium-sized company is currently greatly expanding its production capacity to meet the strong demand. This includes the construction of a brand new production facility on the premises, which is hoped to produce 30 tons of fucosyllactose every year. This quantity will not be sufficient for widespread application in infant formula products, however, and so the company is already planning a further expansion of production volumes. At this time, the Rhinelanders are applying for European approval as a ‘Novel Food’, as well as GRAS approval from the FDA. “It would be the first product from a bacterial production process to gain Novel Food approval in Europe,” says Jennewein.
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