Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the blood microbiota compositions in Chinese patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Background: Emerging evidences suggest that the microbiota present in the feces plays a role in PD. However, the alterations of the microbiome in the blood of PD patients remains unknown.

Methods: Microbiota communities in the blood of 45 patients and their healthy spouses were investigated using high-throughput Illumina Hiseq sequencing targeting the V3-V4 region of 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene. The relationships between the microbiota in blood and PD clinical characteristics were analyzed.

Results: No difference was detected in the structure and richness between PD patients and healthy controls. Genera Isoptericola, Cloacibacterium, Enhydrobacter, and Microbacterium were enriched in the blood of PD patients, whereas genus Limnobacter was enriched in the healthy controls after adjusting for age, gender, body mass index (BMI), and constipations. Furthermore, not only genera Cloacibacterium and Isoptericola, which were identified enriched in the PD patients, but also genera Paludibacter and Saccharofermentans were positively associated with disease duration. Some specific genera in the blood were related to mood disorders.

Conclusions: We give direct evidences firstly to support the hypothesis that the identified microbiota in the blood are associated with PD. Additionally, some microbiota in the blood are closely related to PD clinical characteristics. Elucidating these differences in the blood microbiomes will provide a foundation to improve our understanding the role of the microbiota in the pathogenesis of PD.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/microbiota-dna-in-the-blood-of-patients-with-parkinsons-disease/