Unravelling the mechanisms of underweight in Parkinson’s disease by investigating into the role of gut microbiome

Abstract

Approximately half of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) suffer from unintentional weight loss and are underweight, complicating the clinical course of PD patients. Gut microbiota alteration has been proven to be associated with PD, and recent studies have shown that gut microbiota could lead to muscle wasting, implying a possible role of gut microbiota in underweight PD. In this study, we aimed to (1) investigate the mechanism underlying underweight in PD patients with respect to gut microbiota and (2) estimate the extent to which gut microbiota may mediate PD-related underweight through mediation analysis. The data were adapted from Hill‐Burns et al., in which 330 participants (199 PD, 131 controls) were enrolled in the study. Fecal samples were collected from participants for microbiome analysis. 16S rRNA gene sequence data were processed using DADA2. Mediation analysis was performed to quantify the effect of intestinal microbial alteration on the causal effect of PD on underweight and to identify the key bacteria that significantly mediated PD-related underweight. The results showed that the PD group had significantly more underweight patients (body mass index (BMI) < 18.5) after controlling for age and sex. Ten genera and four species were significantly different in relative abundance between the underweight and non-underweight individuals in the PD group. Mediation analysis showed that 42.29% and 37.91% of the effect of PD on underweight was mediated through intestinal microbial alterations at the genus and species levels, respectively. Five genera (Agathobacter, Eisenbergiella, Fusicatenibacter, Roseburia, Ruminococcaceae_UCG_013) showed significant mediation effects. In conclusion, we found that up to 42.29% of underweight PD cases are mediated by gut microbiota, with increased pro-inflammatory bacteria and decreased SCFA-producing bacteria, which indicates that the pro-inflammatory state, disturbance of metabolism, and interference of appetite regulation may be involved in the mechanism of underweight PD.