Characterising immune protection components of Koala milk

Characterising immune protection components of Koala milk

To better understand the contribution of marsupial milk in providing immune protection for the Koala joey, APAF conducted a collaboration with Bioplatforms Australia, and Professor Kathy Belov and colleagues at The University of Sydney and The University of the Sunshine Coast. Here, we characterised the protein components of both early lactation and late lactation milk using LC-MS/MS, and matched peptides to a transcriptome obtained from the koala mammary gland.

This approach detected 230 peptides in the early lactation milk and 235 in the late lactation milk, with 106 in common, suggesting temporal-based differential gene expression. Four cathelicidins were found in koala milk and these proteins are known for broad spectrum antimicrobial activity. Numerous novel peptides were detected that have not been found in milks of other marsupials. Interestingly, over 1% of the milk proteome contained peptides from koala gamma retrovirus (KoRV).

Morris KM, O'Meally D, Zaw T, Song X, Gillett A, Molloy MP, Polkinghorne A, Belov K. Characterisation of the immune compounds in koala milk using a combined transcriptomic and proteomic approach. Sci Rep. 2016 Oct 7;6:35011.