Health Effects of Dietary DNA from Novel foods

The major fraction of DNA present in the food (dietary DNA) is degraded in the gastrointestinal tract. However, it is a recent and novel finding that a substantial fraction of intact dietary DNA, several hundred base pairs long, is taken up from the gastr ointestinal tract and distributed to blood and organs. It has previously been shown that free DNA in the human body, from infections (external sources) and cell degradation (internal sources), affects a range of health parameters, especially immunologic al status and protection against infections. DNA from microbial sources, CpG DNA, have been shown to have immunostimulatory effects and can induce significant antibody response including the Toll-like receptor 9. Moreover, diseases with organ immunoprecip itates against DNA (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus- SLE) have been known although without mechanistic explanations except low levels of Dnase I. The major DNA enzyme degrading DNA in the gut and also in the blood and extracellularly is Dnase I. A mouse Dn ase I knock-out with similar symptoms as SLE patients has been made available for this study. Effects of feeding and injection of DNA from novel foods will be investigated to identify the biological response, regardless of whether such adverse effects are due to increased exposure to dietary DNA from novel foods or due to exposure to novel structural determinants in DNA.