Purification of Functional Milk Oligosaccharides for Human Health Improvement

Student Name: Kevin Chen

UCD Department: Food Science and Technology

UCD Mentor: Dr. Daniela Barile

Milk oligosaccharides play a prebiotic role in the growth and establishment of a balanced gut flora in infants, selectively enriching the beneficial and protective bacteria that promote healthy immune and cognitive development. By acting as anti-pathogenic agents, milk oligosaccharides hold great promise as high quality supplements that can help support the health of any population with comprised immune systems. In order to provide sufficient quantities of oligosaccharides for clinical and functional testing, this work optimized several steps of activated carbon oligosaccharide filtration from human milk permeates. For measurement of process efficiency, a carbohydrate assay was first developed by treating milk products treated with Carrez clarification. Carbohydrate adsorption tests on activated carbon followed by total carbohydrate and lactose quantification showed that ratios of activated carbon to carbohydrate from 5-10 had better carbohydrate retention. In addition, permeates filtered with finer mesh charcoal (20-500) at a charcoal/carbohydrate ratio of 10 had the majority of carbohydrates adsorbed. Optimized conditions found in this study can be applied to purification from bovine milk whey permeate, a dairy industry waste stream. With further refinements to other steps of the purification technique, activated carbon filtration can be adapted as an effective method for mass extraction of health promoting oligosaccharides.