Ribonucleic acids of human milk

The milk feeding is the most essential process laying the foundation of human health at the postnatal development. However little is known about nucleic acids secreted into mother's milk during lactation. In order to investigate the composition and abundance of human milk NA we adapted the conventional isolation method to achieve high yield of total nucleic acids from milk samples. Concentration of total NA in milk samples of different donors varies from 20 to 68 mkg/ml at early stages of lactation. The average concentration tends to fall down to the end of lactation. The chain length of the major forms of NA varies from mononucleotides up to approximately 100 bases. Compositions of milk oligonucleotides are similar in samples of different donors. Major milk oligonucleotides are formed of RNA. Human milk contains the set of long-chain oligonucleotides with a developed secondary structure. Sequences of some oligo-RNAs correspond to the 3'-part of 5.8 S human ribosomal RNA and to the 3'-parts of tRNAVal and tRNATyr Primary structures of some others oligo-RNAs were related to fragments of human 18S and 28S rRNAs.