Pollen-derived RNAs Are Found in the Human Circulation

Milka Koupenova; Eric Mick; Heather A Corkrey; Anupama Singh; Selim E Tanriverdi; Olga Vitseva; Daniel Levy; Allison M Keeler; Marzieh Ezzaty Mirhashemi; Mai K ElMallah; Mark Gerstein; Joel Rozowsky; Kahraman Tanriverdi; Jane E Freedman

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2019.08.035

Pollen-derived RNAs Are Found in the Human Circulation

iScience. 2019 Sep 27:19:916-926. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2019.08.035. Epub 2019 Aug 24.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, 368 Plantation St., AS7-1051, Worcester, MA 01605, USA. Electronic address: milka.koupenova@umassmed.edu.
² Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
³ Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, 368 Plantation St., AS7-1051, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
⁴ The Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, MA, USA; Population Sciences Branch, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
⁵ Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pulmonary Medicine and Horae Gene Therapy Center, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
⁶ Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA; Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA; Department of Computer Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
⁷ Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA; Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
⁸ Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, 368 Plantation St., AS7-1051, Worcester, MA 01605, USA. Electronic address: jane.freedman@umassmed.edu.

Abstract

The presence of nonhuman RNAs in man has been questioned and it is unclear if food-derived miRNAs cross into the circulation. In a large population study, we found nonhuman miRNAs in plasma by RNA sequencing and validated a small number of pine-pollen miRNAs by RT-qPCR in 2,776 people. The presence of these pine-pollen miRNAs associated with hay fever and not with overt cardiovascular or pulmonary disease. Using in vivo and in vitro models, we found that transmission of pollen-miRNAs into the circulation occurs via pulmonary transfer and this transfer was mediated by platelet-pulmonary vascular cell interactions and platelet pollen-DNA uptake. These data demonstrate that pollen-derived plant miRNAs can be horizontally transferred into the circulation via the pulmonary system in humans. Although these data suggest mechanistic plausibility for pulmonary-mediated plant-derived miRNA transfer into the human circulation, our large observational cohort data do not implicate major disease or risk factor association.

Keywords: Biological Sciences; Molecular Biology; Omics; Transcriptomics.

Pollen-derived RNAs Are Found in the Human Circulation

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

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