Table 5.

Nonspecific antiinfective components of milk: other molecules

Milk component	Pathogen	Disease	Mode of action	Evidence	Reference
Mucin	Rotavirus	Diarrhea (mainly in infants)	Glycosylation-dependent inhibition of virus infection	In vitro, in vivo	Yolken et al. (1992)
Mannosylated glycopeptide	Enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC)	Haemorrhagic colitis	Binding of bacteria to cell surface receptor inhibited	In vitro	Ashkenazi et al. (1991)
CD14	E. coli	Enteric disease	Binding of bacterial LPS and whole bacteria	In vitro	Labeta et al. (2000)
Complement	General cytotoxicity			In vitro	Ogundele (1999a)
Glycolipid (ganglioside fraction of human milk)	Vibrio cholerae, E. coli, Campylobacter jejuni	Diarrhea	Inhibition of toxin action by competition of milk fat globule-bound glycolipids with cell surface receptors	In vitro, in vivo	Laegreid and Kolsto-Otnaess (1987)
Glycosaminoglycan	HIV	AIDS	GAGa binds/competes with HIV cell surface receptor CD4	In vitro	Newburg et al. (1995)
Lactadherin	Rotavirus	Diarrhea	Inhibits virus binding	In vivo	Newburg et al. (1998)
Lipids and fatty acids	Enveloped viruses, S. epidermidis, E. coli	Various	Free fatty acids impair membrane function	In vitro, in vivo	Isaacs et al. (1990)
	Giardia lamblia trophozoites	Diarrhea	Free fatty acids impair membrane	In vitro	Rohrer et al. (1986)
α-lactalbumin fragments	Gram-positive bacteria		Unknown	In vitro	Pelligrini et al. (1999)

^aGAG=Glycosaminoglycan.