Goat's milk feeding enhances innate and adaptive immunities and alleviates allergen-induced airway inflammation in offspring mice

Goat’s milk (GM), as compared to Cow’s milk (CM), is easier for human to digest and absorb. GM feeding can improve colic, minor digestive disorders, asthma or eczema in infants. It has been demonstrated that GM have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Whether GM consumed in pregnant mothers has any immune-modulating effects on their newborns is still unclear. In this study, we used pregnant mothers and their offspring mice to verify this hypothesis. we collected feces of offspring before allergen sensitization (day 0) and two days after i.t. allergen challenge (day 16). Detection of cDNA of feces using Applied Biosystems™ Axiom™ Microbiome Array found the phyla of Bacteroidia, Clostridia, Flavobacteriia, Deferribacteres, Verrucomicrobiae and Gammaproteobacteria as well as some unclassified viruses. Comparison in ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes (F/B ratio), water-fed (W0) group had higher F/B ratio (0.79) than GM-fed (G0) (0.50) and CM-fed (C0) group (0.54) at Day 0. After HDM allergen sensitization and challenge, there was a remarkable increase of F/B ratio in water-fed mice (0.63 in WN vs. 0.84 in WA), while there was no change of F/B ratio in GM-fed (GN vs. GA) and CM-fed mice (CN vs. CA) 44 total sample were analyzed