Interventional Influence of the Intestinal Microbiome Through Dietary Intervention and Bowel Cleansing Might Improve Motor Symptoms in Parkinson's Disease.

The impact of the gut microbiome is being increasingly appreciated in health and in various chronic diseases, among them neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD). In the pathogenesis of PD, the role of the gut has been previously established. In conjunction with a better understanding of the intestinal microbiome, a link to the misfolding and spread of alpha-synuclein via inflammatory processes within the gut is discussed. In a case-control study, we assessed the gut microbiome of 54 PD patients and 32 healthy controls (HC). Additionally, we tested in this proof-of-concept study whether dietary intervention alone or additional physical colon cleaning may lead to changes of the gut microbiome in PD. 16 PD patients underwent a well-controlled balanced, ovo-lacto vegetarian diet intervention including short fatty acids for 14 days. 10 of those patients received additional treatment with daily fecal enema over 8 days. Stool samples were collected before and after 14 days of intervention. In comparison to HC, we could confirm previously reported PD associated microbiome changes. The UDPRS III significantly improved and the levodopa-equivalent daily dose decreased after vegetarian diet and fecal enema in a one-year follow-up. Additionally, we observed a significant association between the gut microbiome diversity and the UPDRS III and the abundance of Ruminococcaceae. Additionally, the abundance of Clostridiaceae was significantly reduced after enema. Dietary intervention and bowel cleansing may provide an additional non-pharmacologic therapeutic option for PD patients.

Arabidopsis MAP kinase 4 regulates salicylic acid- and jasmonic acid/ethylene-dependent responses via EDS1 and PAD4.

Arabidopsis MPK4 has been implicated in plant defense regulation because mpk4 knockout plants exhibit constitutive activation of salicylic acid (SA)-dependent defenses, but fail to induce jasmonic acid (JA) defense marker genes in response to JA. We show here that mpk4 mutants are also defective in defense gene induction in response to ethylene (ET), and that they are more susceptible than wild-type (WT) to Alternaria brassicicola that induces the ET/JA defense pathway(s). Both SA-repressing and ET/JA-(co)activating functions depend on MPK4 kinase activity and involve the defense regulators EDS1 and PAD4, as mutations in these genes suppress de-repression of the SA pathway and suppress the block of the ET/JA pathway in mpk4. EDS1/PAD4 thus affect SA-ET/JA signal antagonism as activators of SA but as repressors of ET/JA defenses, and MPK4 negatively regulates both of these functions. We also show that the MPK4-EDS1/PAD4 branch of ET defense signaling is independent of the ERF1 transcription factor, and use comparative microarray analysis of ctr1, ctr1/mpk4, mpk4 and WT to show that MPK4 is required for induction of a small subset of ET-regulated genes. The regulation of some, but not all, of these genes involves EDS1 and PAD4.

The MAP kinase substrate MKS1 is a regulator of plant defense responses.

Arabidopsis MAP kinase 4 (MPK4) functions as a regulator of pathogen defense responses, because it is required for both repression of salicylic acid (SA)-dependent resistance and for activation of jasmonate (JA)-dependent defense gene expression. To understand MPK4 signaling mechanisms, we used yeast two-hybrid screening to identify the MPK4 substrate MKS1. Analyses of transgenic plants and genome-wide transcript profiling indicated that MKS1 is required for full SA-dependent resistance in mpk4 mutants, and that overexpression of MKS1 in wild-type plants is sufficient to activate SA-dependent resistance, but does not interfere with induction of a defense gene by JA. Further yeast two-hybrid screening revealed that MKS1 interacts with the WRKY transcription factors WRKY25 and WRKY33. WRKY25 and WRKY33 were shown to be in vitro substrates of MPK4, and a wrky33 knockout mutant was found to exhibit increased expression of the SA-related defense gene PR1. MKS1 may therefore contribute to MPK4-regulated defense activation by coupling the kinase to specific WRKY transcription factors.