Currently, the nutritional value of food is associated mainly with components such as proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids. However, another important macromolecules present in many foods are dietary nucleic acids (dietNA), i.e., DNA as well as both coding and non-coding RNAs. In the context of food chemistry and nutrition, dietNA are nowadays vastly neglected. In consequence, there are no dedicated methodologies to characterize dietNA. In this study, using raw or processed meat and plant products as model foodstuffs, we developed a toolbox of methods borrowed from other fields (histology, toxicology, molecular biology) that enable the initial characterization of dietNA as a necessary step on the way to systematic evaluation of their nutritional role. The proposed set of methods embraces (i) paraffin embedding of food samples and their staining to visualize the distribution and variety of dietNA in situ; (ii) comet assay to assess integrity of nuclear DNA with possible detection of DNA damage; (iii) dietNA isolation with and without RNAse digestion to determine the content of both DNA and RNA; (iv) electrophoretic separation of isolates to profile dietNA fragments. Such a combined methodological approach revealed clear differences between dietNA derived from raw and processed food products. We believe that the presented set of methods will encourage the broader research on dietNA to understand their role as a nutritionally relevant food component.

当前，食物的营养价值主要与蛋白质，碳水化合物和脂质等成分有关。然而，许多食物中存在的另一个重要的大分子是饮食核酸（dietNA），即DNA以及编码和非编码RNA。在食品化学和营养方面，DietNA如今已被广泛忽略。结果，没有专门的方法来表征DietNA。在这项研究中，我们使用生的或加工的肉类和植物产品作为模型食品，我们开发了一个工具箱，该工具箱借鉴了其他领域（组织学，毒理学，分子生物学）的方法，这些方法使得DietNA的初始表征成为系统化方法的必要步骤评价其营养作用。原位; （ii）彗星试验以评估核DNA的完整性，并可能检测到DNA损伤；（iii）使用和不使用RNAse消化进行DietNA分离，以确定DNA和RNA的含量；（iv）电泳分离分离物以分析dietNA片段。这种组合的方法学方法揭示了源自原始食品和加工食品的DietNA之间存在明显差异。我们认为，提出的方法将鼓励对DietNA进行更广泛的研究，以了解它们作为营养相关食品成分的作用。