Esplorando il ruolo del microbioma intestinale nella Sclerosi multipla: Un' analisi metagenomica

In recent years, the study of the gut microbiome has emerged as a pivotal area of research, revealing significant connections with various diseases. These connections suggest potential avenues for influencing disease outcomes by targeting the gut microbiome. In this context, the present study focused on an exploratory analysis of metagenomic data acquired from fecal samples of patients affected by Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a chronic autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. The main objective was to investigate whether there are differences in the microbiome profiles of patients compared to healthy controls. After carefully selecting the patients’ cohort and collecting fecal samples, a metagenomic process was employed to extract DNA sequences. These sequences were then decontaminated by filtering out human reads inherent to the nature of the samples. Subsequently, the remaining reads were mapped using Kraken 2 and further refined by Bracken. These meticulous steps provided the data environment that formed the backbone for the core analysis conducted in the study. Next, we used R Studio for the subsequent steps. First, we refined the metadata associated with the samples and assembled a phyloseq object using the output from Bracken and the corresponding metadata. With this setup, we began the data analysis. Utilizing the reliable packages DESeq2 and Decontam, we normalized the data and performed further decontamination. Given the nature of the samples, we focused solely on bacterial species due to their significant contribution to the reads abundances. We calculated alpha and beta diversities, followed by the computation of differentially abundant species. Only the statistically significant species were retained to evaluate potential differences based on metadata categories and investigate the co-founding factors that potentially influence bacterial presence and abundance. The study indicated that the gut microbiome of MS patients who were treated with corticosteroids underwent changes compared to those who did not receive this treatment. Despite that, a number of bacterial species exhibited differential expression when comparing healthy controls and those diagnosed with MS.While further research is required for a definitive answer, these findings contribute to the rapidly expanding field of research exploring the complex relationship between the gut microbiome and diseases.