Microbiota-gut-brain-axis in Parkinson’s disease

The methodology employed in our study entails the use of a model based on the gut-brain axis, incorporating human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived enteric neural cells and midbrain dopaminergic neurons, which are cultured on a microfluidic chip. We will assess the impact of aSYN on brain cells using healthy and PD donor cells. Microbiota effects will be explored using bacterial byproducts. 

Publications

Albert, K., Kälvälä, S., Hakosalo, V., Syvänen, V., Krupa, P., Niskanen, J., Peltonen, S., Sonninen, T.-M., & Lehtonen, Š. (2022) Cellular Models of Alpha-Synuclein Aggregation: What Have We Learned and Implications for Future Study. Biomedicines, 10, 2649.

Barber, K., Studer, L., & Fattahi, F. (2019) Derivation of enteric neuron lineages from human pluripotent stem cells. Nature protocols 14, 1261–1279.