Abstract
Objectives Several studies have evaluated the impact of oral medication on the gut microbiome (GM) in Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, the impact of PD device-assisted therapies (DAT) on the GM remains to be investigated. We profiled acute temporal GM stability around the initiation of PD DAT.
Methods The GM of 21 PD patients initiating either Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) or levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel (LCIG) were compared to 10 spousal healthy control (HC) subjects. 16S amplicon sequencing of the V3-V4 region of stool bacterial DNA was used to compare temporal GM stability between groups and with clinical outcome measures, including disease alternations relative to therapy initiation. GM response to therapy in the PD group was assessed by comparing pre-therapy (-2 and 0 weeks) with post-therapy initiation timepoints (+2 and +4 weeks) and HCs at baseline (0 weeks).
Results Altered GM compositions were noted between the PD and HC groups at various taxonomic levels, including specific differences for DBS and LCIG therapies. Beta diversity changes were also identified across the 4 week post-treatment initiation period, implying a therapy-effect on the GM.
Conclusions We present the first acute longitudinal assessment of GM response to PD DAT. The pre-treatment PD-specific GM (consistent with previous studies) was altered following DAT initiation, indicating DATs have a modulatory impact on the GM in PD.
