Figure 1.

Expression of the genes encoding granzyme A (GZMA), granzyme B (GZMB), granzyme H (GZMH), granzyme M (GZMM), granulysin (GNLY) and perforin (PRF1) expressed in Reads Per Kilobase per Million mapped reads (RPKM) in longitudinal human milk cells (coloured lines) and pooled resting mammary tissue (RMT) (straight red line). Four lactating participants provided pre-partum secretion (PS) cells and four subsequent human milk cell samples at months 1, 3, 6 and 12 of lactation. Average expression at each time point is represented by grey triangles. In general, there is a decrease over lactation period with the highest expression in the pre-partum secretions. Moreover, PS cells show higher gene expression for all immune proteins in comparison with RMT.