ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Systems Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1621468
This article is part of the Research TopicExploring the Oral-Gut Microbiome Interactions: Pathways to Therapeutic Strategies and Implications for Systemic HealthView all 15 articles
Microbiome and Metabolome Integrated Analysis: Exploring Potential Diagnostic Approaches for Parkinson's Disease Using Tongue Coating Samples
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
- 2Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a prevalent neurodegenerative disorder with complex pathogenesis and limited treatment options. The current reliance on clinical evaluation for diagnosis, due to the absence of reliable non-invasive methods, presents significant challenges. Traditional diagnostic approaches, including cerebrospinal fluid or blood sampling, are invasive, pose risks of infection, are costly, and often require complex procedures. Tongue coating sampling presents a non-invasive, cost-effective, and repeatable alternative, indicating that it could be a valuable tool for early detection and monitoring of PD, warranting further investigation. This study explores the feasibility of using tongue coating samples as a diagnostic tool for PD through microbiome analysis, with metabolomics data providing additional context and validation via machine learning models. A cohort of 36 PD patients and 31 controls was recruited. 16S rRNA sequencing was used for microbiome analysis, revealing significant alterations in the relative abundances of various microbial taxa, including Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria. Concurrent metabolomics analysis using UPLC-Q/TOF-MS revealed a decrease in palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) levels in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, and also showed reduced carnitine levels specifically in the severe Hoehn-Yahr (H-Y) stage and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) subgroups. These findings provide preliminary evidence suggesting a potential link between specific microbial alterations and PD progression, which may warrant further investigation. Additionally, the analysis indicates a correlation between certain microbial and metabolomic changes and the advancement of PD. Our results also suggest that tongue coating may serve as a potential non-invasive tool for PD diagnosis, with a particular emphasis on the combined role of the microbiome and metabolome in the pathogenesis of the disease.
Keywords: microbiomics, 16S rRNA, Metabolomics, UPLC-Q/TOF-MS, Parkinson's disease, Tongue coating
Received: 01 May 2025; Accepted: 01 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Jia, Xu, Wu, Wu, Fan and GUI. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Guorong Fan, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
YAXING GUI, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.