2023-05-23 22:59:00
Intestinal bacterium Desulfovibrio
Robert Klatt
Hand of a person with Parkinson’s disease
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Parkinson’s cannot yet be cured. Now the trigger of the degenerative disease has been discovered. This could make it possible to prevent the development of Parkinson’s disease.
Helsinki (Finland). According to that Theodor Wenzel Werk eV More than six million people worldwide suffer from Parkinson’s disease. The degenerative disease is caused by a continuous loss of nerve cells in the brain and cannot yet be cured. A study by the University of Helsinki (UH), who discovered a possible trigger of Parkinson’s.
According to the publication in the specialist magazine Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology the researchers led by Per Saris have shown that certain strains of the Desulfovibrio bacterial genus are likely to be the cause of Parkinson’s disease in most cases.
“Our results are significant because, despite efforts over the past two centuries, the cause of Parkinson’s disease has remained largely undetected. The results of the study indicate that specific strains of Desulfovibrio bacteria are likely to cause Parkinson’s disease. The disease is mainly triggered by environmental factors, that is, environmental exposure to the Desulfovibrio bacterial strains that cause Parkinson’s. Only a small proportion, about 10 percent, of Parkinson’s cases are caused by individual genes.”
Accumulation of α-synuclein protein
The main finding of the research team’s most recent publication is that the bacterial strains detected in Parkinson’s patients cause an accumulation of the α-synuclein protein at a statistically significant level in a Parkinson’s model organism. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans served as a model organism.
Furthermore, the study found that Desulfovibrio strains isolated from healthy individuals do not contribute to the accumulation of α-synuclein to the same extent. In contrast, the protein aggregates induced by the Desulfovibrio strains in Parkinson’s patients were markedly larger.
Prevention of Parkinson’s
The results of the study make it possible to identify carriers of the Desulfovibrio strains in question and to eliminate these bacteria from the digestive tract. In this way, Parkinson’s disease could be prevented.
“Our findings enable screening for carriers of these harmful Desulfovibrio bacteria. Consequently, they can be targeted by measures to remove these strains from the gut, which could potentially relieve and slow down symptoms in Parkinson’s patients. As soon as the Desulfovibrio bacteria are eliminated from the intestine, α-synuclein aggregates are no longer formed in the intestinal cells, from which they migrate towards the brain via the vagus nerve like prion proteins.”
Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2023.1181315
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