Bioactive factors in the milk of a non‐human primate biomedical model

Abstract

Mother's milk contains numerous hormones and growth factors, which have not been extensively investigated in nonhuman primate milk. Here we report values for several bioactive factors in rhesus macaque milk and describe patterns in concentration across lactation. We used 177 milk samples from 59 macaque mothers (each contributing samples from early, peak, and late lactation) housed in the outdoor breeding colony at the California National Primate Research Center. Using standard parallelism and recovery tests, we validated enzyme immunoassays (R&D Systems, Minneapolis) measuring epidermal growth factor (EGF), its receptor (EGF‐R), adiponectin, transforming growth factor beta‐2 (TGF‐ß2), and insulin‐like growth factor II receptor (IGF‐IIR). Linear mixed models, controlling for total milk volume and repeated measures, show that adiponectin, EGF, and EGF‐R all increased significantly from early to peak, and peak to late lactation. Increases from peak to late lactation were noted in TGF‐ß2 and IGF‐IIR. These results illuminate new pathways for the investigation of early life programming through the transfer of bioactives in milk. Supported by NSF‐BCS‐0921978 (KH) and a GW‐SI Opportunity Fund Grant (RB).