A Multidisciplinary Approach to Study the Role of the Gut Microbiome in Relapsing and Progressive MS
Abstract
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS) and a common cause of progressive neurological disability in young adults. The typical disease course (85% of patients) is relapsing or bout-onset MS (RMS) but 15% of patients do not have relapses and experience progression of disability from disease onset or primary progressive form of MS (PPMS). We hypothesize that the gut microbiota in RMS and PPMS patients is different, thus potentially influencing disease course. In this project we recruited 381 subjects (149 RMS patients, 84 PPMS and 148 healthy) and performed fecal (bacterial) DNA by 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing, and high-resolution HLA typing. In addition, we transferred microbiota from RMS (n=2) and PPMS (n=2) patients into germfree mice before inducing experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE). Despite the heterogeneous and modest sample size, we observed increased frequency of Enterobacteriaceae in RRMS patients and a reduction of Prevotella Copri in PPMS subjects. Transplantation of fecal microbiota from RMS patients into germ free mice resulted in milder neurological disability (EAE) compared to mice receiving microbiota from PPMS patients. While results need to be replicated, this suggests that gut microbiota from PPMS is less inflammatory than that of RMS subjects, thus shedding some light into disease pathogenesis.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1095162
Entities
People
- Rob Knight
Organizations
- University of California, San Diego