A Literature Review On Lactopontin And Its Roles In Early Life

Objective: Our study aims to review the functions and possible mechanisms of lactopontin (LPN) in early life.Background: Human milk proteins provide a variety of protection and health benefits in early life. One of these multifunctional proteins is LPN, which is osteopontin (OPN) derived from milk.Methods: Information used to write this paper was collected from Uniprot, PubMed, and Google Scholar, including in vitro, in vivo, and clinical studies.Conclusions: LPN is a highly phosphorylated, O-glycosylated acidic protein and a unique type of OPN, as it presents at the highest concentration and a higher degree of posttranslational modifications (PTMs) in human milk than other tissues and excretions. LPN is present in milk and the intestinal tracts of infants after consumption as a mixture of intact protein and peptides, which can bind diverse integrin and receptors in the target cell and drive downstream signaling pathways. LPN is found to play important roles in developing the immune, intestinal and nervous systems in early life. Moreover, LPN has also shown to support preterm infants' health when they are especially vulnerable after delivery via animal studies. Additionally, LPN can form protein complex with another milk bioactive protein, lactoferrin (LF), to withstand proteolysis and perform more efficient biological activity. Therefore, LPN showed great potential for early life while more clinical trials and evidence are still emergying.