Double Stranded RNA in Human Seminal Plasma

Abstract

Recently, human semen was shown to contain cell-free nucleic acids, such as DNA, long single stranded RNA, and small RNAs–miRNA and piRNA. The RNAs have been suggested to have potential biological roles as communication molecules between cells and in the temporal and spatial regulation of gene expression in the male reproductive system. Here we demonstrate that human seminal plasma contains a variety of cell-free dsRNAs, describe a robust method to isolate this type of nucleic acid in preparative amounts, and discuss the potential biological roles of these molecules in inheritance. dsRNA plays a role in a variety of biological processes, including gene regulation, is extremely stable and can gain access to cells from the extracellular medium. We suggest that one of the possible functions of dsRNA in human seminal plasma may be to influence human oocytes and therefore, influence the offspring. It also remains possible that these dsRNAs might have potential use as biomarkers for the study of human physiopathological conditions and genetic variation.

Comprehensive Analysis of the Safety Profile of a Single-Stranded RNA Nano-Structure Adjuvant

“…Single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) is also known to serve as an agonist of TLR-7/8 and retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I), which can induce innate immune responses and increase immunogenicity [26,27]. Compared to dsRNA, ssRNA can induce appropriate immune responses and does not remain in the body for a long time [28,29], resulting in fewer intense adverse effects. Currently, ssRNA is being studied as an intrinsic adjuvant in tumor-vaccination studies [30,31,32].…”

Biofluids manipulation methods for liquid biopsy in minimally-invasive assays

“…Lately, it was discovered that seminal plasma in a large number of biomarkers, contains a lot of cell-free double stranded RNAs, long single stranded RNA, small RNAs, miRNA and piwi-interacting RNA (piRNA). Indeed, the nucleic acids can phenotypically influence the zygote development and consequently the offspring [50] . Human SF includes also a lot of Seminal Micro-Vesicles (SMVs) produced by the prostate and epididymis into the lumen of the gland and released through an apocrine secretion.…”

On the Role of Seminal Fluid Protein and Nucleic Acid Content in the Paternal Epigenetic Inheritance

“…As a matter of fact, seminal fluid is known to be able to adjust small non-coding RNA composition of the sperm by transferring a variety of sRNAs within the extracellular vesicles, as well as, as free molecules in the plasma [22,91,100,[103][104][105][106]. Moreover, there are also cell-free DNA fragments [107,108], mRNAs, RNAases, and double-stranded RNAs in seminal fluid [109][110][111][112]. Recent findings showed that the mature sperm has also permeability to take exogenous DNA [113][114][115], as well as capacity to internalize the mRNA to DNA through reverse transcriptase [116].…”