20 Jun 2024 --- Researchers state they have successfully produced human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) from genetically engineered plants. They reprogrammed the plants’ processes to create sugar to create a range of HMOs, which “provides a path to the large-scale production of specific HMOs at lower prices than microbial production platforms.” Although HMOs are increasingly added to infant formula to offer nutritional benefits similar to breastfeeding, these nutrition products do not yet replicate the complete nutritional profile of breast milk. The study’s authors from the University of California (UC) in Davis and Berkeley explain that most of the prebiotic sugar molecules in breast milk are challenging to manufacture.
