Posted on 02/04/2012 4:00:27 PM PST by opentalk
Vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients in our foods, we expect. But information?
According to recent research from China’s Nanjing University, when people eat rice, tiny sequences of microRNA from the plant-based food can survive the body’s digestive process and end up absorbed in human tissue where — and here’s the reason why we need to know about this study — plant microRNA may actually affect how our cells behave and function. In the study, Exogenous plant MIR168a specifically targets mammalian LDLRAP1: evidence of cross-kingdom regulation by microRNA, published in the Journal Cell Research, the genetic material from rice showed up in human liver cells where it appeared to influence cells’ uptake of cholesterol from the blood.
First discovered only a decade ago, microRNA is a short, single-stranded RNA molecule that plays a pivotal role in how genes express themselves. For example, as Maverick of Medicine Ray Kurzweil explains, short RNA fragments produced by the human body do things like, “tell the heart cells that only the certain genes which should be expressed in a heart cell are expressed.” The Chinese study is ground breaking because it shows that plant microRNA introduced through diet may have a similar influence over human DNA
....Don’t expect the GMO food industry itself to begin looking for answers to these questions anytime soon. As food writer Ari LeVaux observes, the Monsanto website currently states that, "There is no need to test the safety of DNA introduced into GM crops. DNA (and resulting RNA) is present in almost all foods. DNA is non-toxic and the presence of DNA, in and of itself, presents no hazard.” They have no more incentive to look for bad news about GMO foods than the cigarette companies had to look for negative health effects of smoking cigarettes
(Excerpt) Read more at smart-publications.com ...
well said, we are losing the option to choose what we eat
That's how the microRNA gets into your blood stream.
We can only assume they are carrying out the instructions of their Galactic Overlords who are plotting to take over the Earth and turn us all into heads of cabbage.
So, when I eat rice I pick up its DNA?? Wow, my cells are rice cells! Who knew?!
We should single out really strong and smart people and eat them! Think about it. One person was strong and smart but 100 people could be once they eat them.
People againt GMF are Luddites.
I don’t think you understand “GMO”. (It ain’t cross-pollenization, for instance.)
What's not to like ~ corn bread and fewer bites.
You could sell this stuff.
Gotta be a reason eh.
“First discovered only a decade ago, microRNA is a short, single-stranded RNA molecule that plays a pivotal role in how genes express themselves.”
This is critical, and part of how far we have come in understanding how incomplete early (and some still) understandings of HOW AND WHY a gene (a code that provides instruction to produce a certain protein) does, or doesn’t actually EXPRESS the instruction it is capable of.
There are other insights that demonstrate that “influences” from the environment a gene is in have a role in determining its “expression” (will it or will it not direct the production of the protein it would “normally” provide the instruction for).
RNA and microRNA are only some of the influences that can cause a gene that is present to be active or not.
The “genes” alone are not running the show. Imagine that!!???
This is confirmation of what we have been learning in so many areas of science in the last century. We reach a great new understanding or insight and as we explore it we find it opened a window showing us that we have gained more questions in this area than we even knew to ask before.
Since it happens with food whether GMO or not who cares. Just stupid luddite panic.
Are you talking about fasting? It’d be quite a stretch to construe that as “Avoid grains because they’re unsafe.”
Obama has appointed former Monsanto VP, as a senior adviser to the FDA
We’ve been screwing with those forces for thousands of years. We used to do it through the large stick of selective breeding (grow more of that it tasted good), then the slightly smaller stick of cross breeding (let’s see what happens when we fertilize the tastes good with the pollen from the produces a lot), and now surgically with GMO (this is the gene that makes it taste good, this is the one that makes it produce). You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. And there’s only one way to find out what you don’t know.
I ate so much rice growing up in Louisiana I should be the RiceGirl superhero by now if this had any relation to reality.
If this kind of absorption occurs, then yes--we would be absorbing micro-RNA from all the food we eat.
The presence of viruses in our genome is well established. As far as I know, there is no evidence of plant nucleic acids in our genome. I am highly skeptical of this claim, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, rice is cooked. In the lab, cooking for prolonged periods at high temperatures is a method of killing nucleic acids. The other reason is that RNA is exquisitely unstable, far more than DNA. Working with RNA is a real pain, because of all the precautions necessary to keep it from being destroyed. Your mouth, hands, and bodily fluids all contain RNA destroying agents. I question how any RNA could survive the digestive and circulatory systems to even have an effect on cells.
One possibility here is simple contamination, where the researchers were not careful with their samples, and the samples got mixed. So, where they thought they were detecting rice microRNAs in human liver tissue, they were actually detecting cross-contamination between samples. This could happen from something as simple as forgetting to change a pipette tip between samples, or from accidentally grabbing the wrong tube.
Apparently not a new process as humans have been eating pretty much everything they can keep down for a very long time.
This is from the study. Note this comment: “Food-derived miRNAs may serve as a novel essential nutrient”
Original Article
Cell Research (2012) 22:107–126. doi:10.1038/cr.2011.158; published online 20 September 2011
Exogenous plant MIR168a specifically targets mammalian LDLRAP1: evidence of cross-kingdom regulation by microRNA
Food-derived miRNAs may serve as a novel essential nutrient
It has been widely reported that downregulation of LDLRAP1 increases plasma LDL level35,36. In the present study, direct reduction of LDLRAP1 in mouse liver by RNAi significantly elevated plasma LDL level (Supplementary information, Figure S6A-S6C), confirming that LDLRAP1 is a gene candidate responsible for plasma LDL removal. Interestingly, an elevated level of MIR168a but a decreased LDLRAP1 in mouse liver were detected after just 6 h of rice feeding (Figures 2C and 5B), indicating that exogenous plant MIR168a from food intake can quickly change mouse liver LDLRAP1 level. Continuous downregulation of mouse liver LDLRAP1 level by MIR168a through rice feeding (Figure 6E and 6F) resulted in an elevation of the plasma LDL-cholesterol level after 3 days (Figure 6G), implicating a physiological relevance of food-derived plant MIR168a. Rice feeding-induced reduction of LDLRAP1 protein and elevation of plasma LDL-cholesterol level could be largely reversed by anti-MIR168a ASO (Figure 6I-6K), confirming that the rice feeding-mediated physiological alteration is specifically due to the targeting of mouse liver LDLRAP1 by MIR168a.
This conclusion is also supported by the observation that chow diet with addition of mature MIR168a significantly enhanced the levels of mouse liver MIR168a (Figure 6N) and plasma LDL-cholesterol (Figure 6Q) but decreased mouse liver LDLRAP1 protein level (Figure 6O and 6P). Interestingly, food intake, possibly via intestinal epithelia of GI track, may represent a general pathway for uptake of food-derived or food-associated miRNAs. As shown in Supplementary information, Figure S7F-S7H, we added miR-150, an endogenous mammalian miRNA, into chow diet and fed mice with miR-150-enriched chow diet and normal chow diet, respectively. We found that miR-150 could also enter mouse liver and downregulate its target gene, c-Myb. Given that exogenous miRNAs in food or miRNAs that are ‘added’ into the food can enter the circulation and various organs of animals and play a role in regulating the physiological or pathophysiological conditions, food-derived exogenous miRNAs may be qualified as a novel nutrient component, like vitamins and minerals.
Previous studies have reported that the transfer of genetic material from one species to another may modulate the cellular functions of the recipient species50,51. Such examples include human miRNAs targeting viral genes50 and the translocation of host plant mRNAs into dodder (a parasitic plant)51. However, to our knowledge, it was still unknown whether plant miRNAs could enter mammals and modulate mammalian cell functions. By illustrating that plant miRNAs, such as MIR168a, can be delivered into animal serum and tissues through food intake and digestion and that exogenous MIR168a can target mammalian liver-specific LDLRAP1 in vitro and in vivo, the present study significantly extends our understanding of the role of miRNAs. With their robust stability and highly conserved sequences, secretory miRNAs can act not only in a cross-species, but also a cross-kingdom fashion.
In this sense, miRNAs may represent a novel class of universal modulators that play an important role in mediating animal-plant interactions at the molecular level. Like vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients derived from food sources, plant miRNAs may serve as a novel functional component of food and make a critical contribution to maintaining and shaping animal body structure and function. Extending from this concept, the intake of certain plant miRNAs generation after generation through a particular food source may leave an imprint on the genetic map of the human race.
In conclusion, the discovery of plant miRNAs and their roles in the biology of mammalian cells and animal organs represents the first evidence of cross-kingdom transfer of functionally active miRNAs and opens a new avenue to explore miRNA-mediated animal-plant interactions.
The anti GM food crowd will little comfort in this study. It shows their fears are self inflicted.
too much rice in Chinese diet induces chronic constipation and therefore “microRNA” from plant can transfect chinese organs(liver....). And as a free “microRNA” in the cell, induces the expression of some non coded genes.....
Gosh, I never herd such a stupid thing!
Assume for a moment that God knows all about microDNA!
All of this would have been difficult to understand even 10 years ago to say nothing of 3,500 years ago.
Maybe there's a short period of avoidance that short circuits the microDNA hold on your genepool.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume you’re entirely correct. So then...I wonder what instructions Monsanto will issue with the foods they’re “designing”?
Or are you suggesting theirs are just as safe as His?
Me too! And I’m reminded of a limerick but gee, I dunno ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.