Relationships Between Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder and Parkinson’s Disease: Indication from Gut Microbiota Alterations

Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) has a close relationship with Parkinson's disease (PD) and was even regarded as the most reliable hallmark of prodromal PD. RBD might have similar changes in gut dysbiosis to PD, but the relationship between RBD and PD in gut microbial alterations is rarely studied. In this study, we aim to investigate whether there are consistent changes between RBD and PD in gut microbiota, and find some specific biomarkers in RBD that might indicate phenoconversion to PD. Alpha-diversity showed no remarkable difference and beta-diversity showed significant differences based on the unweighted (R = 0.035, P = 0.037) and weighted (R = 0.0045, P = 0.008) UniFrac analysis among idiopathic RBD (iRBD), PD with RBD, PD without RBD and normal controls (NC). Enterotype distribution indicated iRBD, PD with RBD and PD without RBD were Ruminococcus-dominant while NC were Bacteroides-dominant. 7 genera (4 increased: Aerococcus, Eubacterium, Gordonibacter and Stenotrophomonas, 3 decreased: Butyricicoccus, Faecalibacterium and Haemophilus) were consistently changed in iRBD and PD with RBD. Among them, 4 genera (Aerococcus, Eubacterium, Butyricicoccus, Faecalibacterium) remained distinctive in the comparison between PD with RBD and PD without RBD. Through clinical correlation analysis, Butyricicoccus and Faecalibacterium were found negatively correlated with the severity of RBD (RBD-HK). Functional analysis showed iRBD had similarly increased staurosporine biosynthesis to PD with RBD. Our study indicates that RBD has similar gut microbial changes to PD. Decreased Butyricicoccus and Faecalibacterium might be potential hallmarks of phenoconversion of RBD to PD.