Caltech’s scientists have found a concrete link between bacteria in our gut and the debilitating symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, potentially opening the door for a treatment that targets through the digestive system instead of the brain.
Researchers have theorized bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, or gut, related to the deterioration of motor skills in people with Parkinson’s disease, but the new study released Thursday presents the strongest evidence yet. The Caltech experiment shows the disease’s symptoms emerged in mice after fecal bacteria was transferred from humans with Parkinson’s disease.
“The data suggests that changes in the gut microbiome are likely more than just a consequence of PD,” said Sarkis Mazmanian, a professor of Microbiology at Caltech in a statement. “It’s a provocative finding that needs to be further studied, but the fact that you can transplant the microbiome from humans to mice and transfer symptoms suggests that bacteria are a major contributor to disease.”
The results from Mazmanian’s laboratory, led by post doctoral researcher Tim Sampson, appeared Thursday in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Cell.
Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the world, affecting 1 million people in the U.S. and as many as 10 million worldwide, according to Caltech.
The discovery could be ground breaking, according to Kelvin Davies, a USC professor of molecular and computational biology, who is unaffiliated with the study but reviewed an advanced copy of the paper to provide context.
Assuming the results are correct, Davies said the evidence — though not yet shown in humans — presents a new idea in the field and could lead to important innovation.
“It certainly opens avenues for research and opens up potential avenues for therapies, if we can find something advantageous,” Davies said.
Ideally, this would lead to a treatment that could prevent or perhaps even halt the disease in its earliest stages, Davies said. “There’s sure to be a flurry of activity in the Parkinson’s research community to replicate these results,” he said.
What the Study Shows
Researchers have suspected a connection to the gut existed because gastrointestinal problems often precede Parkinson’s disease. To test the theory, Caltech’s microbiologists compared the motor skills of mice with and without gut bacteria. Though both sets over-produced a protein related to Parkinson’s disease, the Germ-free mice performed significantly better at running on treadmills, crossing a beam and descending from a pole, according to Caltech.
The study also showed mice fed short-chain fatty acids, a digestive byproduct of breaking down fiber, began to show motor skill disabilities and symptoms in the regions of the brain linked to the disease.
The final test took fecal samples from humans with and without Parkinson’s disease, then placed those samples inside mice without existing bacteria. The mice who received the samples from healthy humans did not present symptoms.
The results of the study suggest Parkinson’s disease treatments focused on the gut could help patients. A therapy for the gut may have fewer side effects than one for the brain, Sampson said.
“We might be able to provide either a probiotic therapy or a dietary therapy that could change the (bacteria) population and then change the disease outcome,” said Tim Sampson, the first author on the study. “If we can drug the microbiome instead, we might be able to bypass some of the negative effects.”
Sampson sees the research as the foundation for future work. Researchers will have to narrow down trillions of the bacteria to find the culprit or culprits before they can devise a treatment. Wiping out all of the bacteria isn’t an option because of the positive effects microbes have on the immune and nervous systems.
“It’s still much like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Sampson said.
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/health/20161201/new-parkinsons-discovery-by-caltech-could-be-ground-breaking-for-future-treatment
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