Human milk contains an abundance of nutrients which benefit the development and growth of infants. However, infant formula has to be used when breastfeeding is not possible. The large differences between human milk and infant formula in prebiotics lead to the suboptimal intestinal health of infant formula-fed infants. This functional deficit of infant formula may be overcome through other dietary polysaccharides that have been characterized. The aim of this review was to summarize the potential applications of dietary polysaccharides as prebiotics, synbiotics, and postbiotics in infant formula to better mimic the functionality of human milk prebiotics for infant gut health. Previous studies have demonstrated the influences of dietary polysaccharides on gut microbiota, SCFA production, and immune system development. Compared to prebiotics, synbiotics and postbiotics showed better application potential in shaping the gut microbiota, the prevention of pathogen infections, and the development of the immune system. Moreover, the safety issues for biotics still require more clinical trials with a large-scale population and long time duration, and the generally accepted regulations are important to regulate related products. Pectin polysaccharides has similar impacts to human milk oligosaccharides on gut microbiota and the repairing of a damaged gut barrier, with similar functions also being observed for inulin and β-glucan. Prebiotics as an encapsulation material combined with probiotics and postbiotics showed better potential applications compared to traditional material in infant formula.

The objective of this study was to detect the influence of dietary Schizochytrium microalgae on milk composition, milk fatty acids, and milk sn-2 fatty acids in goat’s milk. Firstly, we could see that the fat content increased in low microalgae supplementation goat’s milk (LM, 15 g/day) and the lactose content decreased in medium microalgae supplementation goat’s milk (MM, 25 g/day) compared with control goat’s milk (C, 0 g/day). Moreover, the absolute concentration of the docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) of LM, MM, and high microalgae supplementation (HM, 35 g/day) goat’s milk was 29.485, 32.351, and 24.817 mg/100 g raw milk, respectively, which were all higher than that in the control goat’s milk with 4.668 mg/100 g raw milk. In addition, the sn-2 DHA content increased in MM and HM goat’s milk. However, the decreasing trend of the sn-2 DHA content was observed in LM goat’s milk. As for other fatty acids, the oleic acid (C18:1n9c) and linolenic acid (C18:3n3) content decreased and increased, respectively, in all experimental goat milk. Finally, an interesting phenomenon was found, which was that docosanoic acid (C22:0) and tetracosenic acid (C24:1) were only detected in test goat’s milk. Consequently, the phenomena of this study demonstrated that dietary Schizochytrium microalgae have an obvious effect on the fatty acid and sn-2 fatty acid profile of goat’s milk, and they provide an effective method to improve the content of goat’s milk DHA in practical production.

(1) Background: to date, a clear description of the impact of specific enzymes on the enzyme-modified cheese (EMC) flavor is lacking. Moreover, comparative studies on the aroma compounds’ intensity of EMC have been rarely investigated. Therefore, this study was done to determine the influence of incubating substrates with proteases and different lipases on cheese ripening index and aroma compounds. (2) Methods: two-stage processing was adopted; proteolysis followed by lipolysis. (3) Results: results showed that the usage of Flavourzyme may improve the value of pH 4.6-WSN/TN%. Butanoic acid and hexanoic acid have a significant influence on the overall flavor of EMCs. In particular, the ethenyl acetate compound was detected in all products and was perceived as a fruity and sweet aroma, which has not been reported in previous literature. The concentration of short-chain fatty acids of EMCs made by Lipase MER was higher than EMCs made by Palatase, while the total content of medium and long-chain fatty acids of EMCs made by Lipase MER was lower than EMCs made by Palatase. The percentage of esters compounds in EMCs made by Lipase AY 30G was higher than the other two lipases, except EMC1. (4) Conclusions: Flavourzyme may be used to speed up the ripening of cheeses that need extensive proteolysis. The ability of Lipase MER to hydrolyze short-chain fatty acids was stronger than that of Palatase, while the ability of Lipase MER to hydrolyze medium and long-chain fatty acids was weaker than that of Palatase. The use of Lipase AY 30G was accompanied by the production of some other flavor esters, which made the final hydrolysates more fragrant and may be a good choice to produce fruity cheese flavor EMC. While Lipase MER may barely contain ester activity. This study may provide a reference for the selection of incubated enzymes for specific flavor EMC.

Human milk (HM) is the golden standard of infant nutrition that can protect immature body function and enhance nutrition metabolism to ensure infant growth. Region specificity and lactation period could change the protein composition in HM. In this research, proteomics analysis was used to compare proteomes across eight cities, namely Harbin, Lanzhou, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Jinhua, Weihai, Zhengzhou, and Beijing, which represented the northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest, east, and north and central regions of China,. Proteins varied significantly among the cities. These different proteins were mainly involved in the process of platelet degranulation, innate immune response, and triglyceride metabolic process, which might be due to different living environments. These differences also lead to variation in protection and fat metabolism from mothers to infants in different cities. Four proteins were expressed differently during 6 months of lactation, namely Dipeptidyl peptidase 1, Lysozyme C, Carbonic anhydrase 6, and Chordin-like protein 2. The changes in these proteins might be because of the change of growth needs of the infants. The findings from our results might help to improve the understanding of HM as well as to design infant formula.