Human Milk Oligosaccharide (HMO) Microarray

What Are Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMOs)?

Found exclusively in human breast milk, Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMOs) are complex, non-digestible carbohydrates, which are crucial for regulating gut bacteria, boosting immunity, and maintaining the gut barrier. They are a class of structurally diverse carbohydrates exclusively synthesized in the mammary gland. They are composed of five monosaccharide building blocks: glucose (Glc), galactose (Gal), N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc), fucose (Fuc), and sialic acid (Neu5Ac). At Creative Biolabs, we offer a suite of glycoarray services to facilitate advanced research, including glycan microarray, glycoprotein microarray, glycopeptide microarray, and glycolipid microarray. By leveraging our HMO microarray platform, researchers can gain insights into the diverse structures of HMOs and their interactions with biological receptors, aiding in the development of nutritional therapies, probiotics, and diagnostic tools for infant health.

Fig.1 Different Human milk oligosaccharide with various composition.¹

Human Milk Oligosaccharide Types and Classification

HMOs can be categorized by their degree of fucosylation, sialylation, and neutral core structure:

• Fucosylated HMOs (e.g., 2'-FL, 3-FL)
  Contain one or more fucose moiety in human milk oligosaccharide, critical for pathogen decoy functions.
• Sialylated HMOs (e.g., 3'-SL, 6'-SL)
  Terminally capped with sialic acid, implicated in neurodevelopment and anti-inflammatory responses.
• Neutral non-fucosylated HMOs (e.g., LNT, LNnT)
  Serve as selective substrates for beneficial microbes like Bifidobacterium species.

What Is the HMO Microarray?

An HMO microarray is a slide-based testing platform. It contains specific HMOs printed on the surface. We measure how proteins, antibodies, aptamers or other targets bind to these HMOs using a fluorescence-based detection system.

Fig.2 HMO microarray at Creative Biolabs.

Integrating Synthetic Chemistry: Expanding the Glycan Library

Due to the limited yield of natural HMOs, chemical synthesis of human milk oligosaccharides is essential to ensure structural diversity and scalability. Our microarray integrates HMOs from multiple sources, and this hybrid sourcing guarantees reproducibility and wide coverage of functional glycoepitopes. Our platform is suitable for:

• Enzymatically synthesized HMOs for regio- and stereo-selective glycosylation
• Chemically synthesized HMOs for rare or modified structures (e.g., sulfated HMOs)

Whether you are exploring what are human milk oligosaccharides in infant health, or evaluating aptamer selection for human milk oligosaccharides, our HMO microarray provides a robust, research-grade platform tailored to your study goals.

HMO Microarray Platform at Creative Biolabs

At Creative Biolabs, we take pride in offering a highly specialized HMO microarray platform for deciphering glycan-mediated biological functions with unprecedented resolution. Built on years of glycoengineering and microarray fabrication expertise, our platform enables structure-defined, high-throughput interaction profiling between HMOs and a wide range of biomolecular targets, including lectins, antibodies, microbes, aptamers, and mammalian receptors.

• >50 natural/synthetic HMOs, covering fucosylated, sialylated & neutral types (I/II).
• Fluorescence & chemiluminescence detection for accurate binding measurement.
• Customize arrays using your preferred oligos, targets, or formats.
• Supports microbe-glycan studies, antibody profiling, aptamer selection, host-pathogen research.
• Arrays are manufactured under stringent quality control to ensure reproducible, reliable performance.

Human Milk Oligosaccharide Microarray Workflow

At Creative Biolabs, we follow a carefully designed and quality-controlled workflow to ensure accurate, reproducible profiling of human milk oligosaccharide interactions:

Discuss Your HMO Project

Why Choose Creative Biolabs for HMO Microarray Solutions?

With decades of experience in glycoscience, Creative Biolabs provides an integrated platform for HMO microarray design, screening, and analysis:

• Access to rare and structurally verified HMOs
• Tailored microarray fabrication and customization
• Advanced data interpretation support from glycomics experts
• Full compatibility with aptamer, antibody, cell, and pathogen profiling

Related Services You May Be Interested In

Creative Biolabs offers a broad spectrum of glycan microarray platforms to complement HMO research, each tailored to specific glycan classes and biological applications:

• 100 Glycan Microarray – Broad-spectrum glycan-binding profiling for GBPs, antibodies, and cells
• 100 N-Glycan Microarray – Focused analysis of N-linked glycan binding
• Oligosaccharide Microarray – Functional interaction analysis of synthetic oligosaccharide structures
• Polysaccharide Microarray – Designed for profiling long-chain carbohydrate ligands
• Glucan Microarray – Ideal for innate immunity and β-glucan pattern recognition studies
• Heparan Sulfate Microarray – Analyze protein interactions with sulfated glycans
• Glycosaminoglycan (GAG) Microarray – Characterize GAG binding in development, matrix biology, or cancer
• ABH-Glycan Microarray – Specialized for anti-blood group antigen profiling and immunotyping

FAQs

Reference:

1. Triantis, Vassilis, Lars Bode, and RJ Joost Van Neerven. "Immunological effects of human milk oligosaccharides." Frontiers in pediatrics 6 (2018): 190. Distributed under Open Access license CC BY 4.0, without modification. https://doi.org/10.3389/fped.2018.00190

Supports

• O-Linked Glycan
• N-Linked Glycan