Effect of thermal and non-thermal treatments and in vitro digestion on loss of immunological active proteins and allergy-protective capacity of milk.

Consumption of raw cow’s milk and untreated mother’s own milk has been reported to protect children from developing asthma, allergies, and respiratory infections because of the presence of immunologically active proteins, like IgG and lactoferrin. Thermal treatments induce a loss of protection because most immunologically active proteins are heat sensitive. Non-thermal treatments (e.g., Ultraviolet-C (UV-C) and nano-PEF) play an important role in protecting immunologically active proteins and may therefore possibly decrease the loss of allergy-protective capacity of human and bovine milk, while the mechanism of this remains unclear. This study aims at comparing the loss of immunologically active whey proteins in human and bovine milk after non-thermal treatments, exploring the digestibility of these immunologically active whey proteins with an infant in vitro digestion model, and evaluating the loss of allergy-protective capacity of these milk by in vivo experiments in an OVA-sensitized mouse model. This research would help improve milk production processes to retain immunological benefits in processing human and bovine milk.