High-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing reveals gut microbial changes in 6-hydroxydopamine-induced Parkinsons disease mice

Recently, there has been a rapid increase in studies on the relationship between brain diseases and gut microbiota, and clinical evidence on gut microbial changes in Parkinsons disease (PD) has accumulated. 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) is a widely used neurotoxin that leads to PD pathogenesis, but whether the alterations of gut microbial community in 6-OHDA-treated mice has not been investigated. Here we performed the 16S rRNA gene sequencing to analyze changes in gut microbial community of mice. We found that there were no significant changes in species richness and its diversity in the 6-OHDA-lesioned mice. The relative abundance of Lactobacillus gasseri and L. reuteri probiotic species in feces of 6-OHDA-lesioned mice was significantly decreased compared with those of sham-operated mice, while the commensal bacterium Bacteroides acidifaciens in 6-OHDA-treated mice was remarkably higher than sham-operated mice. These results provides a baseline for understanding the microbial communities of 6-OHDA-induced PD model to investigate the role of gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of PD.