Structural changes of gut microbiota in Parkinson's disease and its correlation with clinical features

The aim of this study was to compare the structure of gut microbiota in Parkinson's disease(PD) patients and healthy controls;and to explore correlations between gut microbiota and PD clinical features. We analyzed fecal bacterial composition of 24 PD patients and 14 healthy volunteers by using 16 S rRNA sequencing. There were significant differences between PD and healthy controls, as well as among different PD stages. The putative cellulose degrading bacteria from the genera Blautia(P=0.018),Faecalibacterium(P=0.048) and Ruminococcus(P=0.019) were significantly decreased in PD compared to healthy controls.The putative pathobionts from the genera Escherichia-Shigella(P=0.038), Streptococcus(P=0.01), Proteus(P=0.022), and Enterococcus(P=0.006) were significantly increased in PD subjects. Correlation analysis indicated that disease severity and PD duration negatively correlated with the putative cellulose degraders, and positively correlated with the putative pathobionts. The results suggest that structural changes of gut microbiota in PD are characterized by the decreases of putative cellulose degraders and the increases of putative pathobionts, which may potentially reduce the production of short chain fatty acids, and produce more endotoxins and neurotoxins; and these changes is potentially associated with the development of PD pathology.

Premotor Diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease

Typical Parkinsonian symptoms consist of bradykinesia plus rigidity and/or resting tremor. Some time later postural instability occurs. Pre-motor symptoms such as hyposmia, constipation, REM sleep behavior disorder and depression may antecede these motor symp- toms for years. It would be ideal, if we had a biomarker which would allow to predict who with one or two of these pre-motor symptoms will develop the movement disorder Parkinson＇s disease （PD）. Thus, it is interesting to learn that biopsies of the submandibular gland or colon biopsies may be a means to predict PD, if there is a high amour of abnormally folded alpha-synuclein and phosphorylated alpha-synuclein. This would be of relevance if we would have available means to stop the propagation of abnormal alpha-synuclein which is otherwise one of the reasons of this spreading disease PD.