Gut microbiota composition in untreated people with relapsing-remitting and secondary-progressive Multiple Sclerosis
Radu Tanasescu1, Alba Cortes Carbonell2, David Pritchard3, Cinzia Cantacessi4, Cris Constantinescu5
1Clinical Neurology, 2Parasitology, University of Valencia, 3University of Nottingham, 4Parasitology, University of Cambridge, 5Cooper Neurological Institute
Objective:
To investigate prospectively the qualitative&quantitative differences in the faecal bacterial composition of untreated patients with RRMS and SPMS.
Background:
Alterations in gut microbiome composition are suggested to act as a driver in the transition of RRMS to secondary-progressive MS (SPMS).
Design/Methods:
We present prospective 16S rRNA gene high-throughput sequencing data from faecal samples of 33 patients with RRMS and 10 patients with SPMS. Differences between gut microbiota composition were validated prospectively at three time-points over 12-months. We used available microbial profiles of healthy controls and RRMS from a different population (Jangi-et-al.2016) for comparative analyses with our own data. We studied blood T regulatory cell (CD4+CD25highFoxp3+) associations with specific gut bacterial taxa.
Results:
While some gut microbiota composition traits were common to RRMS and SPMS patients, we identified a small number of distinctive bacteria associated with SPMS; of these, the genus Slackia. Slackia exigua is known to be part of gut dysbiosis associated with cancer progression. There were no significant correlations between Treg counts and abundance of selected bacterial taxa significantly associated with RRMS or SPMS.
Conclusions:
Subtle differences were observed between the gut bacterial composition of SPMS patients and that of RRMS.