ArticleNature communications2025
Gut microbial production of imidazole propionate drives Parkinson's pathologies.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Microbial metabolite-driven mechanisms linking the gut microbiome to atherosclerosis: multi-omic and translational perspectives.Gut microbes · 2026Review
- An oral-gut microbial metabolite linksGut microbes · 2026Article
- The microbiota-proteostasis axis: implications in neurodegenerative diseases.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Review
- Review
- Gut bacterial metabolite imidazole propionate potentiates Alzheimer's disease pathology.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Microbiome histidine competition mediates dietary control of systemic imidazole propionate.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Gut microbiota-derived succinate links proteostasis collapse to α-synuclein pathology and aging.iScience · 2026Article
- Structural insights into urocanate reductase using room-temperature X-ray crystallography.Acta crystallographica. Section D, Structural biology · 2026Article
- Restoring Firmicutes-Associated Metabolites: A Gut-Brain Axis Approach to Alleviate Neuroinflammation and Oxidative Stress in Intracerebral Hemorrhage.Current microbiology · 2026Article
- Oral Dysbiosis and Neuroinflammation: Implications for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Mood Disorders.Microorganisms · 2026Review
- Precision prebiotics: Engineering food-derived polysaccharides to target specific SCFA-producing taxa for neuroprotection via the microbiota-gut-brain axis.Current research in food science · 2026Review
- Intermittent Fasting: A Path to Reducing Obesity-Driven Mitochondrial and Gut Barrier Dysfunction to Improve Gut-Brain Axis.Cellular and molecular gastroenterology and hepatology · 2026Review
- The Enteric Nervous System as a Mediator of Microbiota-Gut-Brain Interactions in Parkinson's Disease.Journal of neurochemistry · 2026Review
- BiombalanceAntioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Development and emerging trends in gastrointestinal dysfunction of Parkinson's disease: a decade-long bibliometric analysis.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2025Review
- Microbial orchestration of neuroimmune crosstalk: from homeostasis to disease.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
18 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by the selective degeneration of midbrain dopaminergic neurons and aggregation of α-synuclein. Emerging evidence implicates the gut microbiome in PD, with microbial metabolites proposed as potential pathological mediators. However, the specific microbes and metabolites involved, and whether gut-derived metabolites can reach the brain to directly induce neurodegeneration, remain unclear. Here we show that elevated levels of Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) and its enzyme urocanate reductase (UrdA), which produces imidazole propionate (ImP), in the gut microbiome of patients with PD, along with increased plasma ImP. Colonization of mice with S. mutans harboring UrdA or Escherichia coli expressing UrdA from S. mutans increases systemic and brain ImP levels, inducing PD-like symptoms including dopaminergic neuronal loss, astrogliosis, microgliosis, and motor impairment. Additionally, S. mutans exacerbates α-synuclein pathology in a mouse model. ImP administration alone recapitulates key PD features, supporting the UrdA-ImP axis as a microbial driver of PD pathology. Mechanistically, mTORC1 activation is crucial for both S. mutans- and ImP-induced PD pathology. Together, these findings identify microbial ImP, produced via UrdA, as a direct pathological mediator of the gut-brain axis in PD.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.