Abstract
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative amyloid disorder with debilitating motor symptoms due to the loss of dopamine-synthesizing, basal ganglia-projecting neurons in the substantia nigra. An interesting feature of the disease is that most of PD patients have gastrointestinal problems and bacterial dysbiosis, years before the full expression of motor symptoms. We hypothesized that antibiotic consumption might be a contributing factor of gut microbiome dysbiosis in PD, favoring curli-producing Enterobacteria. Curli is a bacterial α-synuclein (αSyn) which is deposited first in the enteric nervous system and amyloid deposits are propagated in a prion like manner to the central nervous system. In addition, antibiotics result in a low-grade systemic inflammation, which also contributes to damage of neurons in enteric- and central nervous system. To support our hypothesis, by comparing PD prevalence change with antibiotic consumption data in EU countries, we found significant positive correlation between use narrow spectrum penicillin + penicillinase resistant penicillin and increased prevalence of the disease.
Highlights
According to an ancient proverb, “death lives in the belly”, and with the discovery of the extensive role of gut microbiome in the development of different serious diseases, our recent knowledge should confirm this statement.Parkinson’s disease (PD) was discovered by James Parkinson 200 years ago and he treated his patients with intensive purgative drugs and observed an improvement of the symptoms, without even having any knowledge of gut flora or microbiome [1,2]
In addition to motor programming and execution, basal ganglia participate in learning, cognition and emotion; functions, which are affected in PD [6]
It is worth noting that colonization of αSyn overexpressing mice with fecal microbiota from PD patients enhances motor symptoms compared to microbiome transplants from healthy humans [38]
Summary
According to an ancient proverb, “death lives in the belly”, and with the discovery of the extensive role of gut microbiome in the development of different serious diseases, our recent knowledge should confirm this statement.Parkinson’s disease (PD) was discovered by James Parkinson 200 years ago and he treated his patients with intensive purgative drugs and observed an improvement of the symptoms, without even having any knowledge of gut flora or microbiome [1,2]. It is worth noting that colonization of αSyn overexpressing mice with fecal microbiota from PD patients enhances motor symptoms compared to microbiome transplants from healthy humans [38]. Among the factors, influencing the gut microbiome, antibiotic exposure has profound and sometimes persisting impact on the bacterial composition, diversity and function of the intestinal flora [39].
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