Considerable alterations in the gut microbiota are seen in patients with MS, according to a study published in Genome Medicine. Oluf Pedersen, MD, and colleagues analyzed 148 patients with MS and 148 matched healthy controls. When comparing patients with MS and healthy controls, 61 bacterial species were abundantly different; of these, 31 were enriched in MS. There was a positive association seen for a cluster of inflammatory markers composed of blood leukocytes, C-reactive protein, and blood cell gene expression of IL-17A and IL-6 with a cluster of MS-related species. In cases with disease-active, treatment-naïve MS, bacterial species that were more abundant were positively linked to a group of plasma cytokines including interleukin (IL)-22, IL-17A, interferon-β, IL-33, and tumor necrosis factor-α. There was an association for the bacterial species richness of treatment-naïve cases with the number of relapses during a 2-year period. In cases without active disease, the absolute abundance of two bacterial species (Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Gordonibacter urolithinfaciens) known to produce anti-inflammatory metabolites was enriched. Higher viral species diversity and higher abundance of Caudovirales bacteriophages were seen with MS.
