Plant miRNAs found in human circulating system provide evidences of cross kingdom RNAi

BACKGROUND: Emerging evidence indicates that plant miRNAs can present within human circulating system through dietary intake and regulate human gene expression. Hence we deduced that comestible plants miRNAs can be identified in the public available small RNA sequencing data sets. RESULTS: In this study, we identified abundant plant miRNAs sequences from 410 human plasma small RNA sequencing data sets. One particular plant miRNA miR2910, conserved in fruits and vegetables, was found to present in high relative amount in the plasma samples. This miRNA, with same 6mer and 7mer-A1 target seed sequences as hsa-miR-4259 and hsa-miR-4715-5p, was predicted to target human JAK-STAT signaling pathway gene SPRY4 and transcription regulation genes. CONCLUSIONS: Through analysis of public available plasma small RNA sequencing data, we found the supporting evidence for the plant miRNAs cross kingdom RNAi within human circulating system. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-017-3502-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.