Dietary nucleic acids promote oral tolerance through innate sensing pathways in mice.

Oral tolerance is essential for intestinal homeostasis and systemic immune function. However, our understanding of how oral tolerance is maintained is inadequate. Here we report that food-derived nucleic acids promote oral tolerance through innate sensing pathways. We find that dietary nucleic acids, but not microbiota, expand the natural intraepithelial lymphocyte (IEL) pool, specifically in the small intestine. TGF-β1, produced by natural IELs, then promotes activation of gut CD103⁺ dendritic cells to support the induction of antigen-specific Treg cells in a mouse model of OVA-induced oral tolerance. Mechanistically, MAVS and STING are redundantly required for sensing dietary RNAs and DNAs to activate downstream TBK1 signalling to induce IL-15 production, which results in the accumulation of natural IELs. Thus, our study demonstrates a key role of food-triggered innate sensing pathways in the maintenance of natural IELs and oral tolerance. Oral tolerance is an important feature of gut immune homeostasis but how it is maintained is not fully known. Here authors show in a mouse model that dietary nucleic acids activate the MAVS and STING pathways, which leads to an increased abundance of natural intraepithelial lymphocytes, producing soluble factors that maintain tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]