Making Human Milk Oligosaccharides Available for Research and Application – Approaches, Challenges, and Future Opportunities

Elucidation of the biological roles and more detailed structure–function relationships of human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) requires access to homogeneous, defined HMO samples. Various approaches, including chemical synthesis, enzymatic/chemoenzymatic synthesis, and fermentation processes, have been developed to support this goal. Examples of scalable industrial processes demonstrating each approach are presented. These strategies, alone and in combination, may be deployed to address the problem of routine access to HMOs for biological and nutritional research and applications.