Faa G, Pichiri G, Coni P, Dessì A, Fraschini M, Fanos V. They will be famous: Multipotent stem cells in breast milk. World J Clin Pediatr 2025; 14(2): 101080 [DOI: 10.5409/wjcp.v14.i2.101080]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Angelica Dessì, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Cagliari, SS 554 Km 4.5, 09042 Monserrato, Cagliari 09100, Sardegna, Italy. angelicadessi@unica.it
Research Domain of This Article
Pediatrics
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Gavino Faa, Giuseppina Pichiri, Pierpaolo Coni, Department of Medical Sciences and Public Health, University of Cagliari, Cagliari 09100, Sardegna, Italy
Angelica Dessì, Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Cagliari, Cagliari 09100, Sardegna, Italy
Matteo Fraschini, Department of Ingegneria Elettrica ed Elettronica, University of Cagliari, Cagliari 09100, Sardegna, Italy
Vassilios Fanos, Department of Surgical Sciences, AOU and University of Cagliari, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Monserrato 09042, Italy
Author contributions: Faa G revised the literature; Faa G and Fanos V wrote the manuscript; Pichiri G, Coni P, Dessì A, Fraschini M, and Fanos V revised the manuscript; Fanos V had the original idea for this manuscript; and all authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Angelica Dessì, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Cagliari, SS 554 Km 4.5, 09042 Monserrato, Cagliari 09100, Sardegna, Italy. angelicadessi@unica.it
Received: September 3, 2024 Revised: January 20, 2025 Accepted: February 12, 2025 Published online: June 9, 2025 Processing time: 195 Days and 14.5 Hours
Abstract
Breast milk represents the gold standard for neonatal nutrition, especially for preterm and term infants with a low birthweight. This awareness is based not only on the nutritional properties of human milk, which is specifically designed for the growth of humans but also on breast milk’s non-nutritional properties, such as protection against infection. In fact, breast milk should be considered a heterogeneous ecosystem, including a wide range of cells in addition to those involved in immune function; growth factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor; multiple noncoding microRNAs; immune cells; epithelial cells and multipotent mesenchymal stem cells. This recent identification of a pool of progenitor stem cells in human milk is the driving force behind the growing research aimed at identifying the nature of these stem/progenitor cells and their sources.
Core Tip: The presence in the breast milk of a huge number of stem/progenitor cells, able to differentiate into so many different cell types, and their availability at a very low cost without the necessity of obtain complex permissions for their use, has induced in recent years multiple authors to consider the use of maternal milk stem cells in clinical practice. The possible fields of application of milk stem cells are so numerous, including all fields of regenerative medicine.
