Characterization of the intestinal microbiota during infection in a mouse model of infection-triggered Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that has been shown to be influenced by the intestinal milieu. The gut microbiota is altered in PD patients, and murine studies have begun suggesting a causative role for the gut microbiota in progression of PD. We have previously shown that repeated infection with the intestinal murine pathogen resulted in the development of PD-like pathology in mice compared to wild-type littermates. This addendum aims to expand this work by characterizing the gut microbiota during infection in our PD model. We observed little disturbance to the fecal microbiota diversity both between infection timepoints and between and wild-type control littermates. However, the level of short-chain fatty acids appeared to be altered over the course of infection with butyric acid significantly increasing in mice and isobutyric acid increasing in wild-type mice.