Metagenome-assembled microbial genomes from Parkinson's disease fecal samplesOriginal paper
Karen Pendergrass is a microbiome researcher specializing in microbiome-targeted interventions (MBTIs). She systematically analyzes scientific literature to identify microbial patterns, develop hypotheses, and validate interventions. As the founder of the Microbiome Signatures Database, she bridges microbiome research with clinical practice. In 2012, based on her own investigative research, she became the first documented case of FMT for Celiac Disease, four years before the first published case study.
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The human gut microbiome composition has been linked to Parkinson's disease (PD). However, knowledge of the gut microbiota on the genome level is still limited. Here we performed deep metagenomic sequencing and binning to build metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from 136 human fecal microbiomes (68 PD samples and 68 control samples). We constructed 952 non-redundant high-quality MAGs and compared them between PD and control groups. Among these MAGs, there were 22 different genomes of Collinsella and Prevotella, indicating high variability of those genera in the human gut environment. Microdiversity analysis indicated that Ruminococcus bromii was statistically significantly (p < 0.002) more diverse on the strain level in the control samples compared to the PD samples. In addition, by clustering all genes and performing presence-absence analysis between groups, we identified several control-specific (p < 0.05) related genes, such as speF and Fe-S oxidoreductase. We also report detailed annotation of MAGs, including Clusters of Orthologous Genes (COG), Cas operon type, antiviral gene, prophage, and secondary metabolites biosynthetic gene clusters, which can be useful for providing a reference for future studies.