CONCLUSIONSPoison oak changes the immune-related miRNAs profile of milk exosomes:

Poison oak affect milk composition Yes

Few miRNAs affected metabolism Yes

Pasteurization amount and affect proportion of miRNAs from milk exosomes.

all RNA

Proportion specific miRNA affected cancer and metabolism why??

Emily Sahagun1, Jimmy Bell2, Jennifer Belveal1, Sarah Akers1, Randi Wilson1, Chelsey Naito1,

Claudia Ingham1, Lisbeth Goddik3, David Hendrix2, Duo Jiang4, and Massimo Bionaz1

INTRODUCTION

Urushiol, the allergen present in Toxicodendron

diversilobum (western poison oak), is responsible for

contact dermatitis.

More than 70% of adults have a reaction to

urushiol, making this an important problem in the

Northwest of the US.

There is a popular belief that consumption of

milk from goats fed with poison oak provides

resistance to allergic contact dermatitis.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small 18-25nt RNAs

functioning in post-transcriptional regulation.

miRNAs are horizontally transferred between cells

in the same organism; it is also possible they could be

transferred between organisms.

Milk has a large number of exosomes containing

miRNAs that are highly enriched for immune-related

function.

Therefore, it is possible that the putative beneficial

effect of milk from goats fed poison oak is due to

changes in miRNAs content of exosomes in goat’s

milk.

PILOT STUDY

Goal: to assess the fate of urushiol in lactating dairy goats fed with poisonoak. Two lactating Saanen goats weighing 70±2 kg were housed with their triplets

at the OSU Sheep Center. Their pens were divided into a feeding area and social

area. Milk yield of the does was 3.3± 0.7 kg per day. Poison oak was presented to

the adult females at 8 am and 6 pm daily, separate from the kids, in raised feeders.

The goats were fed up to 2 kg of poison oak at each feeding. They were offered

2.8 kg of orchard grass, 2.5 kg Alfalfa, and 1.3 kg whole corn plus minerals at 11

am and 8 pm each day.RESULTS

No urushoil was found in blood, milk, or plasma of the goats fed poison oak.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

LITERATURE CITED Gartner, B. L., C. Wasser, E. Rodriguez, and W. L. Epstein. 1993. Seasonal Variation of Urushiol Content in Poison Oak Leaves. Dermatitis 4:33-36.

Kouakou, B., D. Rampersad, E. Rodriguez, and D. L. Brown. 1992. Dairy goats used to clear poison oak do not transfer toxicant to milk. California

Agriculture 46(3):4-6

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The research was supported by the Agricultural Research Foundation (OR). Grant#8283A

Luigi and Caroline Meneghelli of Inavale farm

8AM and 6PM goats were isolated from the kids for

3 hours and up to 2 kg of Poison oak was provided.

Daily dry matter intake of poison oak was recorded

Animals were fed twice a day (11AM and 8PM) with

2.8 kg Orchard grass, 2.5 kg Alfalfa, and 1.3 kg

whole corn plus minerals

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1Department of Animal and Rangeland Sciences, Oregon State University, OR, 97331, USA 3Department of Food Science & Technology, Oregon State University, OR, 97331, USA

2Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Oregon State University, OR, 97331, USA4Statistics Department, Oregon State University, OR, 97331, USA

Main findings:

Poison oak affect piRNAs

Pasteurization proportion of piRNAs

Poison oak was freshly collected from

Inavale Farm (Philomath, OR) each 2-3

days

OBJECTIVE

To assess the effect of feeding poison oak on 1) milk

yield and composition, and 2) abundance of various

miRNA in milk exosomes. Furthermore, an

additional objective was to assess the effect of

pasteurization on abundance of various miRNA in

milk exosomes.

The poison oak did not affect milk yield, total solid in the milk, the energy content of the

milk, overall feed intake of the goats or the kids, and the body weight of the kids; however,

several parameters of the milk were affected by poison oak. Feeding poison oak also

negatively affected body weight (76.1 vs. 74.1 in control vs. poison oak fed goats, p<0.01).

Feeding poison oak affected

did not affect the

expression of miRNA, but

piwi associated RNA

(piRNA) expression was

affected.

Pasteurization decreased

significantly the levels of

piRNA

Heptadecylcatechol

Heptadecenylcatechol

Heptadecadienylcatechol

Heptadecatrienylcatechol

URUSHOIL COMPOSITION

Out of 431 annotated goat miRNA we identified 98 present in

all samples

ng RNA/mL milk (log2)

Control Poison Oak

4.0

4.5

5.0

5.5

6.0

6.5

7.0Pasteurized

Raw a

a

bb

Total reads (log2)

20

21

22

23

24

25

a

a

b

miRNA hit (log2)

10

12

14

16

18

20

Pasteurization No No Yes

Poison Oak Yes No No

No No Yes

Yes No NoPasteurization significantly decreased total

RNA isolated from milk exosomes Pasteurization significantly decreased total sequence reads of RNA isolated

from milk exosomes, but did not affect the total amount of annotated miRNA