They will be famous: Multipotent stem cells in breast milk

Breast milk represents the gold standard for neonatal nutrition, especially for preterm and term infants with a low birthweight. This awareness is based not only on the nutritional properties of human milk, which is specifically designed for the growth of humans but also on breast milk’s non-nutritional properties, such as protection against infection. In fact, breast milk should be considered a heterogeneous ecosystem, including a wide range of cells in addition to those involved in immune function; growth factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor; multiple noncoding microRNAs; immune cells; epithelial cells and multipotent mesenchymal stem cells. This recent identification of a pool of progenitor stem cells in human milk is the driving force behind the growing research aimed at identifying the nature of these stem/progenitor cells and their sources.