Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and intestinal microbiota—toward establishing cause and effect

Marc Gotkine*, Denise Kviatcovsky, Eran Elinav

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

34 Scopus citations

Abstract

The intestinal microbiota may be involved, through metabolic gut–brain interactions, in a variety of neurological conditions. In this addendum, we summarize the findings of our recent study investigating the potentially modulatory influence of the microbiome in a transgenic ALS mouse model, and the possible application to human disease. We found that transgenic mice show evidence of dysbiosis, even at the pre-symptomatic stage, and have a more severe disease course under germ-free conditions or after receiving broad-spectrum antibiotics. We demonstrated that Akkermansia muciniphila ameliorated the disease in mice and that this may be due to the production of nicotinamide. We then conducted a preliminary study in human ALS and identified functionally similar alterations within the metagenome. Furthermore, we found that patients with ALS had lower systemic and CSF levels of nicotinamide, suggesting that the changes observed in the mouse model may be relevant to human disease.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1833-1841
Number of pages9
JournalGut Microbes
Volume11
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Nov 2020
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Keywords

  • Akkermansia
  • als
  • Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
  • microbiome
  • motor neuron disease
  • nicotinamide
  • sod1

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