Nutritive Implications of Dietary MicroRNAs: Facts, Controversies, and Perspectives

As one group of non-coding RNA molecules, microRNAs have recently become more well-known due to their pivotal role in gene regulation. A large number of endogenous microRNAs naturally occur in the human body, and some of them act as the regulatory targets of the diet and its components. The wide presence of microRNAs in various food materials have inspired food scientists and nutritionists to explore their nutritive and bioactive significance. This article comprehensively reports updated insights into the accessibility, stability, absorbability, and bioactivity of dietary microRNAs by combing the current knowledge into figures and tables for reader’s convenience. As one frontier in food science and nutrition, the research platform on dietary microRNAs is imperfect even defective indicating by the inconsistent even contradictory results concluded by different investigations. The pros and cons as well as the limitations of current investigations have been critically discussed with much attentions paid on experimental designs and protocols. Moreover, the future research directions have been recommended as a list. Thus, this paper may not only provide a quick glance at the state-of-the-art of dietary microRNAs but also guide the further researches to clarify the current controversies and make the results more credible and persuasive.