Maillard reaction with milk proteins reduced the prebiotic activity of 2'-fucosyllactose in a neonatal rat model

  • Food Chem. 2026 Jul 1:516:149410. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2026.149410.
Simiao Liu  1 ,  Yujie Pan  2 ,  Yaqi Tu  3 ,  Xin Liu  4 ,  Chunhua Wu  5 ,  Jia Liu  6 ,  Meixi Liu  7 ,  Cuina Wang  8 ,  Tiehua Zhang  9 ,  Fazheng Ren  10 ,  Xuemei Wang  11 ,  Hao Zhang  12
Affiliations
  • 1. College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 2. College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China; Feihe Research Institute, Heilongjiang Feihe Dairy Co., Ltd., Beijing 100015, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 3. College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 4. Department of Nutrition and Health, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100091, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 5. College of Food Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 6. China National Research Institute of Food and Fermentation Industries, Beijing 100015, China; Beijing Key Laboratory of the Innovative Development of Functional Staple and Nutritional Intervention for Chronic Disease, Beijing 100015, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 7. College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 8. Department of Food Science, College of Food Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin 130062, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 9. Department of Food Science, College of Food Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin 130062, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 10. Department of Nutrition and Health, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100091, China; Beijing Laboratory of Food Quality and Safety, Beijing Municipal Education Commission, Beijing 100091, China; Food Laboratory of Zhongyuan, Luohe, Henan 462300, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 11. College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 12. College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China; Department of Nutrition and Health, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100091, China; Beijing Laboratory of Food Quality and Safety, Beijing Municipal Education Commission, Beijing 100091, China; Food Laboratory of Zhongyuan, Luohe, Henan 462300, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
PMID: 42056776 DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2026.149410
Abstract

2'-Fucosyllactose (2'-FL), a human milk oligosaccharide commonly added to infant formula, readily undergoes the Maillard reaction with milk proteins, but the impact of this modification on its in vivo prebiotic activity remains unclear. This study evaluated the effects of 2'-FL and its Maillard reaction products (MRPs), generated through dry-heating, on jejunal morphology, gut microbiota composition, and microbial functions in neonatal rats. Findings demonstrated that 2'-FL significantly enhanced both jejunal villus and gut microbiota diversity (p < 0.05), with villus length and area increasing by approximately 1.18- and 1.23-fold, respectively. Conversely, MRPs negated these benefits, reducing villus length by 21.6% and decreasing microbial diversity by 22.1%, while favouring a shift towards Bacteroidetes dominance. Functional analysis further revealed that the Maillard reaction suppressed transcriptional activity, while promoting upregulation of amino acid metabolic pathways. These results provide the first quantitative evidence that the Maillard reaction impairs the in vivo prebiotic activity of 2'-FL.

Keywords
16S rRNA; 2’-Fucosyllactose; Gut microbiota; Maillard reaction products; Prebiotic effects.
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