Ruminant Milk-Derived Extracellular Vesicles: A Nutritional and Therapeutic Opportunity?

Abstract

Milk has been shown to contain a specific fraction of extracellular particles that are reported to resist digestion and are purposefully packaged with lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids to exert specific biological effects. These findings suggest that these particles may have a role in the quality of infant nutrition, particularly in the early phase of life when many of the foundations of an infant’s potential for health and overall wellness are established. However, much of the current research focuses on human or cow milk only, and there is a knowledge gap in how milk from other species, which may be more commonly consumed in different regions, could also have these reported biological effects. Our review provides a summary of the studies into the extracellular particle fraction of milk from a wider range of ruminants and pseudo-ruminants, focusing on how this fraction is isolated and characterised, the stability and uptake of the fraction, and the reported biological effects of these fractions in a range of model systems. As the individual composition of milk from different species is known to differ, we propose that the extracellular particle fraction of milk from non-traditional and minority species may also have important and distinct biological properties that warrant further study.

Beneficial Effects of Bovine Milk Exosomes in Metabolic Interorgan Cross-Talk

“…Furthermore, isolation methods should be optimized to enable large-scale production without compromising exosome bioactivity in compliance with good manufacturing practices [ 88 ]. The purification of exosomes is important to avoid other milk constituents or contaminants which might jeopardize their quality in preclinical research [ 174 , 208 ], and rigorous compliance with the MISEV guidelines is necessary to attribute milk exosomes effects reported in exosomes studies [ 209 ].…”

Perspectives on Bovine Milk-Derived Extracellular Vesicles for Therapeutic Applications in Gut Health

“…Although it has been revealed through several previous studies that the lipids of EVs play an important role, there have been few lipidomics studies of bovine milk-derived EVs. This is because, due to the difficulty in reliably separating milk-derived EVs from milk lipids, there is still a limitation to the lipid analysis of milk EVs itself ( Feng et al, 2021 ; Ong et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Bovine milk is one of the world’s most consumed foods, is high in nutritional value and contains a large amount of physiologically functional substances ( Haug et al, 2007 ; Scholz-Ahrens et al, 2020 ). Most of high abundance nutrients, such as protein and fat, in milk have already been characterized, and research on EVs, which are minor components of milk, has rapidly increased over the past decade as the functionalities of EVs and their cargos are being revealed ( Ong et al, 2021 ). In addition, since milk is a food that can be consumed by humans, it is safe and the production volume is abundant, so the mass production of EVs is possible ( Somiya et al, 2018 ).…”

The endocrine and epigenetic impact of persistent cow milk consumption on prostate carcinogenesis

“…Furthermore, no study considered the complete spectrum of vulnerable periods of milk intake during lifetime exposure on prostate tumorigenesis (fetal period, childhood, puberty with final prostate gland differentiation, and adulthood) [Figure 3]. Nevertheless, it is astonishing that, despite these variances and insufficiencies, the majority of dairy industry-independent meta-analyses and prospective studies were able to relate milk consumption with an increased risk of PCa [10,12,13,14,[168][169][170][171][172][173][174][175] , whereas a recent review series sponsored by the Interprofessional Dairy Organization (INLAC) of Spain concluded that milk and dairy product consumption is not associated with increased all-cause mortality [626] and is not associated with an increased risk of PCa [627] .…”