Alterations and Association of Fecal Microbiota and Amino Acids in Parkinson's Patients
Abstract Background: Intestinal microbiota and amino acids that are one of their metabolites play important roles in the mechanism of pathology of Parkinson's disease (PD). It has been reported that the level of amino acids in vivo participate in neurodegeneration by regulating adaptive immune response, while the current researches on alteration of amino acids in intestinal microbiota are still insufficient. Here, we evaluate the correlation between gut microbiota alterations and clinical parameters of PD, amino acid concentrations.Methods: Stool samples from PD and healthy controls were collected for microbiome and targeted metabolome analyses. Results: At the genus level, there was a greater abundance of Rikenellaceae_RC9_gut_group in PD patients with more severe motor symptoms. Metabonomics analysis showed that multiple fecal amino acid concentrations in PD patients were decreased. Moreover, the findings that by spearman analysis Rikenellaceae_RC9_gut_group associated with PD had a significantly negative correlation with phenylalanine (r = -0.488, P < 0.01), tyrosine (r = -0.541, P < 0.01) and isoleucine (r = -0.434, P < 0.01). Conclusions: Our results not only find Rikenellaceae_RC9_gut_group, a new pro-inflammatory genus of intestinal microbiota in PD, but also reveal that it's related to amino acids. These findings are beneficial to identifying microbial therapeutic targets for PD.