The Pediatric laboratory at the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center is focused on milk-derived exosomes and their miRNA and protein cargo. During the last years, we determined the biological effect of milk-derived exosomes carrying miRNAs using in-vitro and in-vivo models. We found high expression of different miRNAs in milk, that may appear to play regulatory roles in many biological and metabolic processes associated with obesity, diabetes, immune system development, and disease prevention. These miRNAs are highly conserved in humans, bovine, and goat milk. In contrast, infant formula contains a very low amount (almost undetectable) of miRNAs. Furthermore, we showed that exosomes and fat globules present in milk were able to enter into normal and tumor cells and affect their miRNA profile expression and biological functions.

One of our future goals based on our previous work on milk-derived exosomes is to determine their immunomodulatory mechanism, in particular on inflammatory bowel diseases.

We have developed a platform to isolate and characterize miRNA profiling of milk-derived exosomes. This allows us to determine the effect of hormones and environmental factors on production of milk-derived exosomes and their miRNA and protein content. Our current goals are to determine the mechanism involved in the regulatory effect of these factors on exosomes secretion, miRNA and protein expression