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The UWA Hartmann Human Lactation Research Group (HHLR Group) revealed in 2007 that some of these cells display stem cell properties.

More recent research by the group is now demonstrating that breastmilk stem cells display the two hallmarks of stemness: they can selfrenew and differentiate towards various cell types.

HHLR Group member Dr Foteini Hassiotou has been characterising the different cell populations present in breastmilk obtained from breastfeeding women at various stages of lactation, from month one to the third year of lactation and beyond.

She has identified distinct cell sub-populations in breastmilk, revealing an organised cellular hierarchy which reflects that of the human lactating breast.

Dr Hassiotou’s goal has been to examine the properties of breastmilk stem cells in order to demonstrate their function in the lactating breast and in the breastfed baby. Initially, she showed that when breastmilk cells are grown in a breast like microenvironment in the culture dish, they form alveolar and ductal structures similar to those of the lactating breast.

While the above was more or less expected since these cells originate from the breast, an exciting new discovery followed: breastmilk stem cells could also be turned into other cell types, such as bone cells, joint cells, liver and pancreatic beta cells, and neurons, in organ-specific micro environments. The leader of the HHLR Group and Dr Hassiotou’s advisor, Winthrop Professor Peter Hartmann, said: “We’ve always known that breastmilk is a very interesting fluid, but we had not really realised just how interesting it is.”

These properties of breastmilk stem cells to turn into all these different cell types open new avenues for potential stem cell-based therapies. Since breastmilk is plentiful and can be obtained ethically using non-invasive methods, it may provide an innovative source of stem cells that could potentially be used to treat life-threatening diseases.
For instance, Dr Hassiotou’s advisor Professor Luis Filgueira says there is great promise for these cells to be used in therapies for diabetes.

In addition, breastmilk cells provide a new physiological model to study breast cancer.

Dr Hassiotou, in collaboration with the Blancafort Breast Cancer Research Group of the University of North Carolina, has commenced experiments that use breastmilk cells as a model to study what goes wrong in breast cells that leads to cancer, hoping to identify potential causative factors that could lead to innovative medical interventions.

The presence of these cells in breastmilk has generated many questions. Among those is what the potential role of these cells is for the breastfed baby. Initially, it was believed that breastmilk cells would be digested in the baby’s digestive tract. However, ground-breaking studies in 2000 showed that in animal models immune cells from
breastmilk pass unharmed through the intestinal mucosa into the blood circulation. The stem cell team of the HHLR group has hypothesised that in a similar way stem cells from breastmilk can enter the baby’s blood circulation, contributing to tissue regeneration and development early in life.

The scientists are now trying to understand what these cells do in the body and are conducting a series of animal transplantation experiments to further understand the regenerative capacity and differentiation potential of the breastmilk stem cells, and elucidate their role for breastfed babies.