The gut microbiome has been increasingly implicated in Parkinson’s disease (PD); however, most existing studies employ bacterial-specific sequencing, and have not investigated non-bacterial microbiome constituents. Here, we use fungal-specific internal transcribed spacer (ITS)-2 amplicon sequencingin a cross-sectional PD cohort to investigate associations between the fungal gut microbiome and PD. Fungal load among participants was extremely low, and genera identified were almost exclusively of proposed dietary or environmental origin. We observed significantly lower fungal DNA relative to bacterial DNA among PD patients. No fungi differed in abundance between patients and controls, nor were any associated with motor, cognitive, or gastrointestinal features among patients.

中文翻译：

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帕金森病中的肠道菌群

肠道微生物组越来越多地与帕金森病 (PD) 相关。然而，大多数现有研究采用细菌特异性测序，尚未研究非细菌微生物组成分。在这里，我们在横断面 PD 队列中使用真菌特异性内部转录间隔 (ITS)-2 扩增子测序来研究真菌肠道微生物组与 PD 之间的关联。参与者中的真菌负荷极低，并且确定的属几乎完全是提议的饮食或环境来源。我们观察到 PD 患者中真菌 DNA 相对于细菌 DNA 显着降低。患者和对照组之间的真菌丰度没有差异，也与患者的运动、认知或胃肠道特征无关。