Componenti antiossidanti e antimicrobici del latte umano e bovino: effetti dei trattamenti di pastorizzazione e congelamento

Breast milk is an extremely complex and highly variable biological fluid that has evolved over millennia to nourish infants and protect them from disease whilst their own immune system matures. The composition of human breast milk changes in response to many factors, matching the infant's requirements according to its age and other characteristics. The ¿Human Milk¿ project, in University College Cork, is a basic research investigation aimed at studying the composition and the functionality of human milk comparing it with cow's milk. Among the different parameters worth to be analyzed (creaminess, protein content, etc), the microflora composition during storage (at refrigerator temperature, freezer temperature) and after pasteurization treatment as well as the antimicrobial and antioxidant components of human milk gained growing attention. The results obtained during my Erasmus Traineeship finalized to achieve this Master Thesis, highlight the key findings of the present research: set up a new assay method to study the antioxidant activity of catalase, lactoperoxidase and lysozyme in human milk and compare them with the antioxidant activity in cow's milk. I studied how the antioxidant molecules could be affected to the heat and storage treatments and a participated in a new project that consisted of the use of lactose oxidase as a novel activator of the lactoperoxidase system in cow's and human milk for improved shelf life using a natural product to preserve the nutritional values of milk.