Reporter : Feng Lifei / Publisher : China Science News / http://news.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2020/11/449020.shtm / Translation, editing : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA / Image courtesy : Scientist magazine
According to a new study of 15 women, breastfeeding mothers may have strong antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 (covi, novel coronavirus) infection. Researchers reported in the November issue of iScience that breast milk samples from all women who have recovered from covid and other lactating women contain antibodies that respond to the covi spike protein.
The detection of virus antibodies in breast milk indicates that the mother may pass the virus immunity to the baby. Christina Chambers, a perinatal epidemiologist at the University of California, San Diego, who did not participate in the study, said that during a pandemic, women can "breastfeed."
Chambers said that so far, there is no evidence that mothers can pass the new coronavirus to their babies through breast milk. She and others performed a new coronavirus RNA test on breast milk and found some positive results, but no live virus. Her latest research also shows that it is safe for babies to consume breast milk, although she has not yet evaluated the antibodies in the breast milk bank she cooperates with.
The role of antibodies in breast milk may not only protect infants from viral infections. Unlike the current practice of using convalescent serum, antibodies extracted from breast milk can also be used as a treatment for new coronary pneumonia. However, “people doubt whether this will actually happen,” said Rebecca Powell, an immunologist and co-author of the study at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
Because the benefits of breast milk for immunity have not been more widely understood, this concept has not yet become popular in the development of antiviral drugs. Powell has been studying breast milk immunology for the past 4 years, analyzing how seasonal flu vaccines promoted an immune response in breast milk when the novel coronavirus spread to New York City earlier this year.
In early April, she and her colleagues were allowed to collect milk samples from breastfeeding mothers who had recovered from covid. The researchers collected samples from 8 women who had received a positive PCR test for the new coronavirus and 7 suspected cases who had not been tested; all 15 women were breast-feeding at the time. The team compared samples of different lactating women accumulated before the pandemic began. They first assessed the presence of immunoglobulin (IgA) antibodies using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and then checked the ability of potential antibodies that bind to the new coronavirus spike protein. Researchers report that all samples recovered from new coronary pneumonia have specific covi binding activity, while samples before the pandemic have low levels of non-specific or cross-reactive activity.
They tested the response of antibodies to the receptor binding region of the covi spike protein and found that 12 of 15 samples showed significant IgA binding activity. Some of these samples also include other reactive antibodies, such as immunoglobulin G and immunoglobulin M. Compared with the control group, the levels of IgA and IgG were the highest.
This result is consistent with a study published in September in the Journal of Perinatal. The study also detected high levels of IgA and some IgG and IgM in most breast milk samples collected during the pandemic, which are harmful to SARS-CoV-2. The S1 and S2 subunits of the spike protein are reactive. After PCR testing, none of the breast milk tested positive for covi, indicating that no mother was infected at the time of sample collection.
"There is no record of whether the 41 women who donated samples have been infected with this virus." said the study's co-author, Veronique Demers-Mathieu, an immunologist at the Medolac Laboratory in Bodø. So it is not clear whether these antibodies are the result of infection with the novel coronavirus or other viruses.
Related paper information: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2020.101735
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