ConcePTION’s goal is to give women the opportunity to take informed decisions about their health and treatment also during the vulnerable periods of pregnancy and breastfeeding. This is hard, because these women are often excluded from clinical trials to protect their babies. And to be able to offer sound advice, a lot of data is needed. To be able to explore the safety of medicines during breastfeeding at a scale that provides enough data to fill the knowledge gap, animal models and in vitro studies are necessary. A recent publication outlines why isolated epithelial cells from Göttingen Minipigs are a good fit to create an in vitro model to study the blood milk barrier.
Epithelial tissue covers almost all surfaces in and on the body. This tissue is made up of tightly packed epithelial cells that form a protective barrier. Heat, sensations, and gases all have to cross this barrier. The same is true for medications travelling through our bodies. To understand if a drug passes from the blood stream into breastmilk, finding out if the drug compound can cross the blood-milk barrier through the epithelial tissue is the key.
Among different animal models, pigs are more physiologically and anatomically similar to humans than other species. For this reason, they are often used in biomedical research. ConcePTION uses a Göttingen Minipig model to study the safety of medicines during breastfeeding. In fact, the Göttingen Minipigs have greater genetic stability and offer more microbiological control than other pigs commonly used for pharmacological and toxicological studies. Genetic stability ensures consistency in experimental results, while microbiological control minimises the risk of contamination, both of which are crucial for reliable research outcomes.
“The mammary epithelial cells isolated from Göttingen Minipigs have physical and functional traits that make them well-suited for studying the epithelial barrier in laboratory settings. Using the isolated epithelial cells from Göttingen Minipigs allows us to reduce animal experiments with alternative methods when possible,” says Chiara Bernardini, researcher of the Department of Veterinary Medical Science at the University of Bologna, and one of the authors of the recent Research in Veterinary Science publication.
She continues: “The morphological and phenotypic characteristics of these cells show that they are suitable for studying the structure and function of the epithelial barrier, offering insights into its role in mammary biology and potentially broader implications for human health and disease – and for women who want to breastfeed.”
By Anna Holm Bodin
Bernardini, C., Nesci, S., La Mantia, D., Salaroli, R., Nauwelaerts, N., Ventrella, D., Elmi, A., Trombetti, F., Zannoni, A. & Forni, M. Isolation and characterization of mammary epithelial cells derived from Göttingen Minipigs: A comparative study versus hybrid pig cells from the IMI-ConcePTION Project, Research in Veterinary Science, Volume 172, June 2024, DOI:10.1016/j.rvsc.2024.105244