Milk Protein Phosphorylation
Milk is a highly functional food that promotes the normal development of breastfed infants. Human milk proteins constitute not only a source of nutrients but also a complex source of bioactive compounds that influence among others, the neonatal immune response, infant brain development, and gastrointestinal bacterial colonization. Phosphorylation is a critical post-translational modification (PTM) that regulates protein function and affects diverse cell signaling pathways and cell-cell interactions. The aim of this research project is to develop comprehensive, sensitive, and label-free methods that allow the identification of all phospho-proteins present in human milk as well as the phosphorylation site occupancy and dynamic variations that take place during the course of lactation, to further understand the physiological benefits provided to the developing neonate. This research project takes advantage of the state-of-the-art technology in Mass Spectrometry instruments, a chip-based platform recently developed for automated phosphopeptide enrichment and analysis by nanoLC-MS/MS.
