Oral and nasal microbiome in Parkinson's disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is associated with neurodegeneration in olfactory and gastrointestinal nervous tissues. Accordingly, PD patients frequently suffer from hyposmia, hyposalivation, and dysphagia. Since hyposmia and gastrointestinal dysfunction are frequently premotor symptoms, it has been speculated that an external, for example microbial, agent could trigger the pathologic process in the corresponding tissues with subsequent spreading to the central nervous system. We recently demonstrated that fecal microbiota of PD patients differ from those of control subjects. Based on these findings and the involvement of nasal and perioral tissues in PD, we compared the oral and nasal bacterial communities of 76 PD patients and 76 control subjects using a 16S rRNA gene sequencing approach. The sequencing was performed in a MiSeq machine.