Abstract

Research projects within this historical research axis have been committed to studying the remodeling of the neuroglia-epithelial unit (NGEU) in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients by characterizing mechanisms involved in intestinal dysfunctions and inflammatory response in the gut. This axis will now extend the study of the NGEU to better define the role of the gut microbiota as a key factor contributing to gut remodeling in PD. Moreover, a new researcher has recently been recruited with the goal to extend discoveries and concepts in PD research to AD field. Hence, this axis encompasses three major projects: (1) Identification of an early intestinal dysbiosis and inflammatory response in PD and assessing whether fecal microbiota transplantation from premotor PD patients to a mouse model of PD modulates disease progression, (2) Longitudinal characterization of ENS remodeling, intestinal dysbiosis and identification of mechanisms involved in an AD mouse model, (3) Assessing whether a bacterial strain, bacterial consortium or bacterial metabolites ameliorate gut/ENS remodeling in a mouse model of AD.