Plant food safety assessment in mediterranean diet: from sustainable agriculture to rna/srnas bioactive nutrients

Food safety challenges have been evolving and requiring new methodologies and tools. Omics approaches can improve our ability to assess new and emerging risks from primary production to final consumption. 
The use of biological agents or essential oils contribute to plant sustainable primary production by limiting external inputs, increasing crop resilience, and improving yields and healthiness. However, investigation on plant responses to treatments is mandatory to assure both crop quality and food safety preservation.
Plant RNA/sRNAs assimilated through the diet can be considered a new class of food components with biological activity on human health. In this context, RNA/sRNAs stability, bioavailability, persistence and spread in human cells need investigations. The encapsulation of RNA/sRNAs in plant nanovesicles (NVs) has recently been proposed as a protective and shuttle system in trans-kingdom cross talk. 

As for risk assessment in primary production, tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and “cima di rapa” (Brassica rapa) produce will be compared to those treated with biostimulants (tomato) or essential oils (B. rapa). The research activity combine agro-phenotyping, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and antioxidant capacity assessment. Multi-level data elaboration will shed light on plant response to treatments in the frame of food safety assessment.
As for identification of plant RNA/sRNAs as bioactive nutrients, berries (tomato) and beans (fava bean, Vicia faba) will be analyzed as both fresh and cooked materials. NVs will be obtained by differential ultracentrifugation. Total and sRNAs will be extracted from NVs and subjected to high-throughput sequencing. RNA species will be identified and compared between fresh and cooked samples. Putative human target genes will be also identified and validated.

• Qualitative and quantitative catalogues of the identified biomolecules (nutritive and/or undesired compounds) in control vs treated sample comparisons.
• Unravel the molecular dynamics underlying the plant responses to treatments.
• Validated protocols for NV isolation from tomato berries and fava bean seeds.
• List of RNA/sRNAs present in both tomato and fava bean NVs and fruits, and identification of RNA/sRNAs of potential interest for human health.
• Comparative analysis of RNA/sRNAs presence in: i) tissues vs isolated NVs, and ii) fresh vs cooked products.