ArticleHuman genomics2025
Dynamic profiling of Cell-free DNA fragmentation uncovers postprandial metabolic and immune alterations.
Article in Human genomics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Blood and urine cell-free circulating DNA in older adults with sarcopenia: a hypothesis-generating study.European geriatric medicine · 2026Article
- Longitudinal cell-free DNA methylome and fragmentome profiles in health uncover signatures of cell type and demographic origin.Genome medicine · 2026Article
- Liquid biopsy epigenetics: establishing a molecular profile based on cell-free DNA.Molecular oncology · 2026Review
- Detection of Cancers Three Years prior to Diagnosis Using Plasma Cell-Free DNA.Cancer discovery · 2025Article
- Circulating Cell-free DNA Fragmentomics Detection and Beyond.Aging and disease · 2025Review
- Fragmentation signatures in cancer patients resemble those of patients with vascular or autoimmune diseases.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Multimodal analysis of cell-free DNA enhances differentiation of early-stage breast cancer from benign lesions and healthy individuals.BMC biology · 2025Article
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9 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundFood intake affects body homeostasis and significantly changes circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA). However, the source and elimination of postprandial cfDNA is difficult to trace, and it is unknown whether these changes can be revealed by cfDNA fragmentomics based on liquid biopsy.
methodsWe performed shallow whole-genome sequencing of 30 plasma samples from 10 healthy individuals at fasting and postprandial (30-min and 2-h time points). We assessed the effect of postprandial states on cfDNA fragment size distribution and utilized deconvolutional analysis of end motifs to determine the potential roles of DNA nucleases in cfDNA fragmentation. We correlated the fragmentation index (defined as the ratio of short-to-long fragments) with gene expression to estimate the relative contribution of various cellular and tissue sources to cfDNA.
resultsCompared to the fasting state, we observed a significant increase in short cfDNA fragments (70-150 bp) and a decrease in long fragments (151-250 bp) at the 30-minute postprandial state, followed by an inverse trend two hours later. Deconvolutional analysis of cfDNA end motifs showed that DNASE1L3 activity decreased at the 30-minute postprandial state, while DNASE1 and DFFB activities increased at the 2-hour postprandial state. We found that the expression of genes related to cellular metabolism and immune responses was upregulated at the postprandial state. Meanwhile, the contribution of cells and tissues involved in metabolic and immune progress to circulating plasma cfDNA was increased.
conclusionsThe fragmentation of cfDNA is considerably influenced by postprandial states, highlighting the significance of taking postprandial effects into account when evaluating cfDNA as a biomarker. Furthermore, our study reveals the potential application of cfDNA fragmentation features in monitoring metabolic and immune status changes.
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