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medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences
Published

Gut-Brain Nexus: Mapping Multi-Modal Links to Neurodegeneration at Biobank Scale

Authors

Mohammad Shafieinouri, Samantha Hong, Artur Schuh, Mary B Makarious, Rodrigo Sandon, Paul Suhwan Lee, Emily Simmonds, Hirotaka Iwaki, Gracelyn Hill, Cornelis Blauwendraat, Valentina Escott-Price, Yue A Qi, Alastair J Noyce, Armando Reyes-Palomares, Hampton L Leonard, Malu Tansey, Anant Dadu, Faraz Faghri, Andrew Singleton, Mike A Nalls, Kristin S Levine, Sara Bandres-Ciga

Abstract

medRxiv [Preprint]. 2024 Sep 13:2024.09.12.24313490. doi: 10.1101/2024.09.12.24313490.

ABSTRACT

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) are influenced by genetic and environmental factors. Using data from UK Biobank, SAIL Biobank, and FinnGen, we conducted an unbiased, population-scale study to: 1) Investigate how 155 endocrine, nutritional, metabolic, and digestive system disorders are associated with AD and PD risk prior to their diagnosis, considering known genetic influences; 2) Assess plasma biomarkers' specificity for AD or PD in individuals with these conditions; 3) Develop a multi-modal classification model integrating genetics, proteomics, and clinical data relevant to conditions affecting the gut-brain axis. Our findings show that certain disorders elevate AD and PD risk before AD and PD diagnosis including: insulin and non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, noninfective gastro-enteritis and colitis, functional intestinal disorders, and bacterial intestinal infections, among others. Polygenic risk scores revealed lower genetic predisposition to AD and PD in individuals with co-occurring disorders in the study categories, underscoring the importance of regulating the gut-brain axis to potentially prevent or delay the onset of neurodegenerative diseases. The proteomic profile of AD/PD cases was influenced by comorbid endocrine, nutritional, metabolic, and digestive systems conditions. Importantly, we developed multi-modal prediction models integrating clinical, genetic, proteomic and demographic data, the combination of which performs better than any single paradigm approach in disease classification. This work aims to illuminate the intricate interplay between various physiological factors involved in the gut-brain axis and the development of AD and PD, providing a multifactorial systemic understanding that goes beyond traditional approaches.

PMID:39371139 | PMC:PMC11451806 | DOI:10.1101/2024.09.12.24313490

UK DRI Authors

Valentina Escott-Price

Prof Valentina Escott-Price

Group Leader

Using Big Data, machine learning and AI to accelerate discoveries into dementia

Prof Valentina Escott-Price