Validation of a new in vitro dynamic system to simulate infant digestion.

Understanding the mechanisms of infant formula disintegration in the infant gastrointestinal tract is a key step for developing new formulas with health benefits for the neonate. For ethical reasons, the access to in vivo data obtained on infants is limited. The use of animal models can be an alternative but these experiments are labour intensive, expensive and results obtained show high inter-individual variability, making their interpretation difficult. The aim of this work was to develop a simple in vitro dynamic gastrointestinal digestion system, for studying infant formula digestion, and to validate it by comparing the kinetics of proteolysis obtained in vitro with in vivo data collected from piglets. Results showed a good correlation between in vitro and in vivo data and confirmed the rapid hydrolysis of caseins in gastric conditions, whereas whey proteins appeared more resistant to digestion.