Background
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases. There is accumulating evidence that link gut microbiota to symptomatology and pathophysiology of PD. The aim of this study was to describe the pattern of gut microbiota and its association with PD and identify the effect of environmental factors on gut microbiota. This case–control study included 46 patients diagnosed as Parkinson’s disease (PD) and 31 healthy volunteers age and sex matched. Detailed history including age of onset, duration of disease, environmental risk factors, diet data, treatment, Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), and gastrointestinal tract (GIT) domain of Non‐Motor Symptoms Scale (NMSS) were assessed. After extraction of bacterial DNA from the fecal samples, bacterial abundance was quantified by qPCR using 16S rRNA group-specific primers.
Results
Significant high abundance of Clostridium cluster IV, Akkermansia, Bifidobacterium, and lactic acid bacteria were found in the PD group compared with the control group (P < 0.001, 0.04, 0.02 and < 0.001, respectively), while Firmicutes were significantly less abundant in the PD group (P < 0.001) compared with the control group. The naive PD patients had significant abundance of Bifidobacterium, and lactic acid compared with control group. Interestingly, Akkermansia was more abundant in treated than untreated patients. There were significant associations between pesticide exposure and Bifidobacterium (P = 0.002), while no significant correlations between different gut microbiota and demographic, environment data, different rating scores or dominant type of PD. There was a significant negative correlation between the Bifidobacterium with the duration of illness (P = 0.012).
Conclusion
The present study highlighted a significant connection between PD and levels of certain types of gut microbiota, in support of a possible link between gut microbiota and a neurodegenerative cascade of PD.
Experiment 1
incomplete
Curated date: 2025/02/10
Curator: Karima
Revision editor(s): Karima
Subjects
- Location of subjects
- Egypt
- Host species Species from which microbiome was sampled. Contact us to have more species added.
- Homo sapiens
- Body site Anatomical site where microbial samples were extracted from according to the Uber Anatomy Ontology
- Feces Cow dung,Cow pat,Droppings,Dung,Excrement,Excreta,Faeces,Fecal material,Fecal matter,Fewmet,Frass,Guano,Matières fécales@fr,Merde@fr,Ordure,Partie de la merde@fr,Piece of shit,Porción de mierda@es,Portion of dung,Portion of excrement,Portion of faeces,Portion of fecal material,Portion of fecal matter,Portion of feces,Portion of guano,Portion of scat,Portionem cacas,Scat,Spoor,Spraint,Stool,Teil der fäkalien@de,Feces,feces
- Group 0 name Corresponds to the control (unexposed) group for case-control studies
- Healthy relatives
- Group 1 name Corresponds to the case (exposed) group for case-control studies
- PD patients
- Group 1 definition Diagnostic criteria applied to define the specific condition / phenotype represented in the case (exposed) group
- patients with parkinson's disease
- Group 0 sample size Number of subjects in the control (unexposed) group
- 31
- Group 1 sample size Number of subjects in the case (exposed) group
- 46
- Antibiotics exclusion Number of days without antibiotics usage (if applicable) and other antibiotics-related criteria used to exclude participants (if any)
- 3 months
Lab analysis
- Sequencing type
- PCR
- 16S variable region One or more hypervariable region(s) of the bacterial 16S gene
- Not specified
Statistical Analysis
- Statistical test
- Mann-Whitney (Wilcoxon)
- Kruskall-Wallis
- Spearman Correlation
- Significance threshold p-value or FDR threshold used for differential abundance testing (if any)
- 0.05
- Matched on Factors on which subjects have been matched on in a case-control study
- age, sex
