Investigating milk-derived extracellular vesicles as mediators of maternal stress and environmental intervention [miRNA-seqMilk]

It was our goal to identify changes in milk-derived extracellular vesicle miRNA cargos after maternal immune activation in lactating Sprague-Dawley rat mothers. Overall design: Sprague-Dawley rats mothers were housed in either standard laboratory cages or in environmental enrichment. Rat dams were injected with either lipolysaccharide (LPS) to induce an immune response or a saline vehicle on postnatal day (P)10. Maternal milk samples were collected 2 hours later on P10 and again 24-hours post-injection on P11. Milk-derived extracellular vesicles were isolated from the milk samples and miRNA cargo evaluated.