Table 3. Comparison of timing, methods and results of the current study and previous studies of human breast milk miRNA.
| Author (year) | n | Time postpartum | Method miRNA quantification | Breast milk portion | Comments and most highly expressed miRNAs a |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current study | 54 | 3 mths | Illumina RNA seq, 50bp single-end reads | EV enrichment using Exoquick | Norwegian women participating in RCT investigating probiotics in prevention of allergy related diseases. Top 10 miRNAs: miR-148a-3p, miR-22-3p, miR-30d-5p, let-7b-5p, miR-200a-3p, let-7a-5p, let-7f-5p, miR-146b-5p, miR-24-3p, miR-21-5p |
| Zhou (2011) | 4 | 60 days | Illumina RNA seq, 36bp single-end reads | EV enrichment using Exoquick | Chinese women. Top 10 miRNAs: miR-148a-3p, miR-30b-5p, let-7f-5p, miR-146b-5p, miR-29a-3p, let-7a-5p, miR-141-3p, miR-182-5p, miR-200a-3p, miR-378-3p. |
| Munch (2013) | 3 | 6–12 weeks | Illumina RNA seq, 36bp single-end reads | Lipid fraction | Two (2) Breast milk samples were sequenced from 3 American of varying ethnic backgrounds. Study participants underwent pharmacological stimulation of breast milk production and submitted multiple samples at 3 hourly intervals. Top 10 miRNAs b : mir-148a-3p, let-7a-5p, mir-200c-3p, mir-146b-5p, let-7f-5p, mir-30d-5p, mir-103a-3p, let-7b-5p, let-7g-5p, mir-21-5p. |
| Kosaka (2010) | 8 | 2–11 mths | MicroRNA microarray (Agilent) | Defatted, cell and debris free milk | Eight (8) Japanese women submitted up to 4 samples at varying time points. No quantitative results published beyond those for miRNA considered to be “immune related”. Reported immune related miRNA with high expression c : miR-92a-3p, miR-155-5p, miR-181a-5p, miR-181b-5p, let-7i-5p, miR-146b-5p, miR-223-3p, miR-17-5p |
| Weber (2010) | 5 | Not reported | miScript Assay (incl. 714 miRNA produced by Qaigen) | Defatted, cell and debris free milk | Commercially available samples from 5 “healthy” women. Ethnicity and timing of sample collection is unspecified. Top 10 miRNAs d : miR-335-3p, miR-26a-2-3p, miR-181d-5p, miR-509-5p, miR-524-5p, miR-137, miR-26a-1-3p, miR-595, miR-580-3p, miR-130a-3p |
EV: extracellular vesicles
amiRNAs in bold type were also found within the top 20 miRNAs of the current experiment
bmiRNA names are converted to miRBase version 21.0 annotation version 16.0
cmiRNA names converted from unspecified earlier version
dmiRNA names converted from miRBase version 13.0. The miRNA names supplied in the study by Zhou et al (2011) required no conversion.