AUTHOR=Chen Juanjuan , Wang Qi , Wang Anqi , Lin Zhanglin 

TITLE=Structural and Functional Characterization of the Gut Microbiota in Elderly Women With Migraine

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2019

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-and-infection-microbiology/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2019.00470

DOI=10.3389/fcimb.2019.00470

ISSN=2235-2988

ABSTRACT=Migraine is a very common, multifactorial, and recurrent central nervous system disorder that causes throbbing headache, photophobia, phonophobia, nausea, and disability. Migraine occurs more often in females and its complex physiopathology is not yet fully understood. An increasing number of gastrointestinal disorders has been linked to the occurrence of migraine suggesting that gut microbiota might play a pivotal role in migraine through the gut-brain axis. In the present work, we performed a metagenome-wide association study (MWAS) to determine the relationship between gut microbiota and migraine by analyzing 108 shotgun-sequenced fecal samples obtained from elderly women who suffer from migraine and matched healthy controls. Notably, the alpha diversity was significantly decreased in the migraine group at species, genus, and KEGG Orthologues levels. Firmicutes, especially the “unfriendly” Clostridium spp., were significantly enriched in the migraine group. Conversely, the healthy controls held more beneficial microorganisms, such as Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, Bifidobacterium adolescentis, and Methanobrevibacter smithii. For functional modules, the migraine group was enriched in gut brain modules (GBMs) including kynurenine degradation and GABA synthesis. However, the healthy controls held higher gut metabolic modules (GMMs) including glycolysis, homoacetogenesis, as well as GBMs including quinolinic acid degradation and S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) synthesis. The differences in gut microbiota composition and function between the migraine and the healthy groups provided new information as well as novel therapeutic targets and strategies for migraine treatment, which could help to improve the early diagnosis of the disease, as well as the long-term prognosis and the life quality of patients suffering from migraine.