Gut microbiome of multiple sclerosis patients and paired household healthy controls reveal associations with disease risk and course

Changes in gut microbiota have been associated with several diseases. Here the international Multiple Sclerosis Microbiome Study (iMSMS) studied the gut microbiome of 576 MS patients (36% untreated), and genetically unrelated household healthy controls (1,152 total subjects). We observed a significantly increased proportion of Akkermansia muciniphila, Ruthenibacterium lactatiformans, Hungatella hathewayi, and Eisenbergiella tayi and decreased Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Blautia species. The phytate degradation pathway was over-represented in untreated MS, while pyruvate-producing carbohydrate metabolism pathways were significantly reduced. Microbiome composition, function and derived metabolites also differed in response to disease-modifying treatments. The therapeutic activity of interferon-β may in part be associated to upregulation of short-chain fatty acid transporters. Distinct microbial networks were observed in untreated MS and healthy controls. These results strongly suppor..., Recruitment and inclusion criteria
A total of 576 MS patients and their household healthy controls were included in this study. The first 128 MS-control pairs were recruited as Cohort 1 (Zhou et al., 2020) and the subsequent 448 pairs were recruited as Cohort 2. Participants were recruited through MS clinics at UCSF (San Francisco, CA), Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston, MA), Mount Sinai (New York, NY), the Anne Rowling Clinic (Edinburgh, UK), University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA), Biodonostia Health Research Institute (San Sebastián, Spain) and FLENI (Buenos Aires, Argentina). Each collaborating site obtained human subject research approval through their respective ethics review committees, following a master protocol established at UCSF (protocol no. 15-17061). All participants provided written informed consent and signed a HIPAA Authorization allowing for the use of their medical record for research purposes. Each collaborating site obtained human subject research approval th...,