Abstract
Diet derived extracellular vesicles (EV) can be absorbed and influence physiological processes. Herein, this study investigates the potential health impacts of extracellular vesicles in meat products. Experimental results showed the extracellular vesicles derived from cooked red meat (RM-EV) and white meat (WM-EV) were successfully isolated via ultra-high speed centrifugation. The median particle size of RM-EV is 137.5 nm and that of WM-EV is 116.1 nm. RM-EV and WM-EV are added to the drinking water of mice for ten weeks. The mice developed insulin resistance and abnormal lipid metabolism in the liver. The influences of RM-EV are more pronounced for mice than WM-EV. High-throughput sequencing indicated that ssc-miR-1 (52.05%) and scc-miR-133a-3p (14.21%) are the most abundant microRNA in RM-EV. However, the highest content of microRNA is gga-miR-133a-3p (44.16%) in WM-EV, followed by gga-miR-1 (21.58%). Therefore, the most abundant ssc-miR-1 in red meat EV (RM-EV-miR-1) was selected for in vitro studies. In vitro experiments revealed that RM-EV-miR-1 inhibited cell proliferation by targeting IGF1 in NCTC1469 liver cell. Besides, RM-EV-miR-1 exacerbates insulin resistance in NCTC1469 insulin resistance cell model by targeting PI3K/AKT signaling pathway. Our findings show that the differential health impacts of red and white meat may be partially attributed to the presence of EV. These results provide novel insights into dietary health from the perspective of EV.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by China Agriculture Research System (CARS-35); Sichuan Science and Technology Program (2021ZDZX0008, 2021YFYZ0007, sccxtd-2026-08-09); National Center of Technology Innovation for Pigs (NCTIP-XD/C13).
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L.S., J.M., and S.L. designed the overall experiment and were the major contributors to writing the manuscript. Y.Y. and T.L. completed bioinformatics data analysis. S.L., Y.L., and L.C. conducted animal experiments and testing. J.M., Y.W., and L.N. conducted cell validation experiments. Y.Z. and L.S. prepare the main figures in the manuscript. M.G. and L.Z. provide project funding and revise the original manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
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Shen, L., Ma, J., Liang, S. et al. Cooked meat-derived extracellular vesicles ssc-miR-1 induces metabolic disorders in the mice liver via PI3k/AKT pathway. npj Sci Food (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41538-026-00709-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41538-026-00709-7
