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Altered gut microbiota in patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease: an age–sex matched case–control study

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Abstract

Objective

The investigations related to how gut microbiota changes the brain–gut axis in idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (PD) attract growing interest. We aimed to determine whether gut microbiota is altered in PD patients and whether non-motor symptoms of PD and disease duration had any relation with alterations of microbiota profiles among patients.

Methods

Microbial taxa in stool samples obtained from 84 subjects (42-PD patients and 42-healthy spouses) were analyzed using 16S rRNA amplicon-sequencing.

Results

We observed a significant decrease of Firmicutes and a significant increase of Verrucomicrobiota at the phylum level. At the family level, Lactobacillaceae and Akkermansiaceae were significantly increased and Coriobacteriales Incertae Sedis were significantly decreased in the PD patients compared to their healthy spouses. Genus level comparison inferred significant increase in abundance only in Lactobacillus while the abundance of Lachnospiraceae ND3007 group, Tyzzerella, Fusicatenibacter, Eubacterium hallii group and Ruminococcus gauvreauii group were all decreased. We determined that the abundance of Prevotella genus decreased, but not significantly in PD patients. In addition, we found differences in microbiota composition between patients with and without non-motor symptoms.

Conclusion

We observed differences in gut microbiota composition between PD patients and their healthy spouses. Our findings suggest that disease duration influenced microbiota composition, which in turn influenced development of non-motor symptoms in PD. This study is the first in terms of both gut microbiota research in Turkish PD patients and the probable effect of microbiota on non-motor symptoms of PD.

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Data availability statement

All relevant data are within the manuscript.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the patients and their family members and TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkiye) for supporting this study.

Funding

The study was supported by the grant from the Turkish Scientific and Technical Council (TÜBITAK-118S704) and by the Bezmialem Vakif University Scientific Research Found (6.2017/53).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Bezmialem Vakif University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Gulsen Babacan Yildiz & Ozlem Gelisin

  2. Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul Health and Technology University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Zeynep Cigdem Kayacan & Ozer Akgul

  3. Science and Advanced Technologies Research Center, Molecular Biology and Genetics, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Ilker Karacan

  4. Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Bezmialem Vakif University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Bilge Sumbul

  5. Department of Medical Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Birsen Elibol

  6. Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul Aydin University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Ozer Akgul

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  1. Gulsen Babacan Yildiz
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by GBY, OG, ZCK, BS, and BE. The data analysis and writing the first draft were performed by GBY, ZCK, IK, and OA. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Gulsen Babacan Yildiz.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Approval was obtained from the Bezmialem Vakıf University Ethics Committee (approval no.: 12/27) and the research was carried out in accordance with the declaration of Helsinki.

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A freely given, written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Babacan Yildiz, G., Kayacan, Z.C., Karacan, I. et al. Altered gut microbiota in patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease: an age–sex matched case–control study. Acta Neurol Belg 123, 999–1009 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13760-023-02195-0

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