AUTHOR=Yan Jun , Feng Xia , Zhou Xia , Zhao Mengjie , Xiao Hong , Li Rui , Shen Hong 

TITLE=Identification of gut metabolites associated with Parkinson’s disease using bioinformatic analyses

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/aging-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2022.927625

DOI=10.3389/fnagi.2022.927625

ISSN=1663-4365

ABSTRACT=Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative movement disease. Gut environmental exposures have been focused due to linking with PD etiology. However, studies of gut metabolome have heretofore provided a "snapshot" of the metabolite profile and little is known about which metabolites contribute to increasing PD risk. The proof-of-concept study is to leverage known toxicology results to identify gut metabolites associated with PD. 
Methods: we collected the gut metabolites whose levels were significantly changed in the feces of PD patients from the following databases: EBM Reviews, PubMed, Embase, MEDLINE and Elsevier ClinicalKey; searched each candidate metabolite interacting PD gene set by using the public Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD); identified and validated gut metabolites with PD gene interactions by a combination of CTD data and statistical approaches; determined gut metabolite affecting specific biological functions and cellular pathways involved in PD by using PANTHER tools.
Results: 19 metabolites were identified and divided into the following main categories according to their structures and biological functions: alcohols (ethanol), amino acids (leucine, valine, phenylalanine, pyrroglutamic acid, glutamate and tyrosine), short-chain fatty acids (propionate, acetate and butyrate), unsaturated fatty acids (linoleic acid and oleic acid), energy metabolism (lactate, pyruvate and fumarate), vitamins (nicotinic acid and pantothenic acid) and choline metabolism (choline and phosphocholine).
Conclusions: Our findings identify that gut metabolites that are highly enriched for PD genes and potentially increase PD risk. Identification of gut metabolite exposures can provide biomarkers for disease identification, facilitate an understanding of gut metabolite exposures and response, and present an opportunity for PD prevention and therapies.