Abstract
Objective: Our study aims to determine gut microbiome differences in composition and function between Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients and controls.
Background: The gut microbiome has been associated with many diseases. Many studies showed that the microbiome can affect aspects of neurological function, brain activity, and behavior. While several digestive symptoms are well-known non-motor features of PD, the role of the gut microbiome in the neurodegenerative process remains underexplored. Recent reports have suggested that the gut microbiome might also play a role in PD.
Design/Methods: We collected ethanol fixed fecal samples from 52 PD patients living in central California and from 26 household/community controls of similar age and race. After extraction of DNA from samples, the V4 region of the bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA gene was sequenced on the Illumina MiSeq platform. The taxonomic assignments of sequences was performed using open reference operational taxonomic unit (OTU) picking in QIIME against the Greengenes database pre-clustered at 97% identity. The statistical analysis was performed using QIIME and R packages.
Results: We found that the gut microbiome composition of the Control group show a greater richness (OTU counts, Chao 1, ACE) and alpha diversity (Shannon/Simpson Index) compared with the PD patients. Beta diversity analysis demonstrated some compositional difference in the microbiome between PD and controls (PERMANOVA, Bray-Curtis: F=1.10, p=0.286; weighted Unifrac: F=2.07, p=0.071; Unweighted UniFrac: F=1.23, p=0.16). Using negative binomial models to determine the differential abundance of taxa (DESeq2 package in R), we found 30 genera to be different between PD and controls (B-H adjusted p-value<0.05).
Conclusions: In this pilot study, we found differences in the gut microbiome composition comparing PD cases and controls and identified specific bacterial genera that are associated with PD status. In the future, we plan to study whether and which environmental and behavioral factors contribute to the diversity of the microbiome in PD.
Disclosure: Dr. Chou has nothing to disclose. Dr. Lagishetty has nothing to disclose. Dr. Bronstein has nothing to disclose. Dr. Jacobs has nothing to disclose. Dr. Ritz has nothing to disclose.
Letters: Rapid online correspondence
REQUIREMENTS
If you are uploading a letter concerning an article:
You must have updated your disclosures within six months: http://submit.neurology.org
Your co-authors must send a completed Publishing Agreement Form to Neurology Staff (not necessary for the lead/corresponding author as the form below will suffice) before you upload your comment.
If you are responding to a comment that was written about an article you originally authored:
You (and co-authors) do not need to fill out forms or check disclosures as author forms are still valid
and apply to letter.
Submission specifications:
- Submissions must be < 200 words with < 5 references. Reference 1 must be the article on which you are commenting.
- Submissions should not have more than 5 authors. (Exception: original author replies can include all original authors of the article)
- Submit only on articles published within 6 months of issue date.
- Do not be redundant. Read any comments already posted on the article prior to submission.
- Submitted comments are subject to editing and editor review prior to posting.
You May Also be Interested in
Use of Whole-Genome Sequencing for Mitochondrial Disease Diagnosis
Dr. Robert Pitceathly and Dr. William Macken