Can "Science" bacteria/niacinamide fight neurodegeneration?

Millions of people worldwide suffer from neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

The exact cause of neurodegeneration is unclear

The past decade has witnessed a paradigm shift in brain research

As a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Eran Elinav at the Weizmann Institute of Science, I studied the role of the gut microbiota and related molecules in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

Nervous system-microbiota cross communication

Recent evidence shows that the human brain continuously communicates with the gut microbiota.

We depleted the microbiota of sod1 transgenic (Sod1-Tg) mice through broad-spectrum antibiotic treatment and started our research

The picture shows the color scanning electron microscope (SEM) of Escherichia coli, one of hundreds of bacteria that live in the human intestine

Unique microbial transplantation can improve ALS in mice

Through a comprehensive metagenomic assessment of disease progression, we identified 11 different microbial strains related to disease severity

Changes in microbiome and niacinamide in patients with ALS

In order to determine whether our findings can be translated into a potential treatment for frostbite in humans, we sequenced the metagenomics of the gut microbiome of patients with frostbite and healthy family members who share the same family environment

Future: Is the treatment based on the microbial metabolome feasible?

Using fast-developing microbiome sequencing, culture, and computing technologies, we were able to identify the distorted metabolic pathway involved in the pathogenesis of ALS in mice, which is highly influenced by the composition and function of the gut microbiome

Further studies of mass spectrometry informatics using molecular networks may reveal the mechanisms behind microbial-related phenotypes (11,12)

about the author:

Eran Blacher received his undergraduate degree and Ph.
D.
from Tel Aviv University, Israel, and performed postdoctoral research at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he studied the role of the microbiome-gut-brain axis in neurodegenerative diseases
.
He is currently a senior postdoctoral researcher at Stanford Medical School, studying the immune system-gut-brain axis in aging and neurological diseases
.