Inflammatory markers and enteric nervous system pathology in the gastro-intestinal tract of Parkinsons’s Disease patients: a histopathological study

The aim of my master thesis project is to investigate the role of gastrointestinal inflammation in neurodegenerative diseases, with particular regard to Parkinson's Disease. Chronic inflammatory disorders of the gastro-intestinal tract, such as Chron's Disease, are known to be associated to a higher risk of developing Parkinson's Disease. Furthermore, the enteric nervous system may represent an early site of protein aggregation leading to alpha-synuclein spread from the gut towards the brain via the vagus nerve. In fact, previous studies conducted by our group identified alpha-synuclein pathology and enteric gliosis in the gastro-intestinal tract of advanced and early Parkinson's Disease patients (Emmi et al., 2022). In my master thesis, I will expand on these findings by investigating markers of inflammation and populations of immune cells in human gastro-intestinal biopsies (stomach and duodenum) of Parkinson's Disease and Healthy Control subjects. I will employ double-label immunoperoxidase and immunofluorescent staining to investigate populations of CD3, CD20, CD68, CD86, CD206 and HLA-DR expressing cells, and perform semi-automatic morphological and morphometrical quantification via FIJI to compare the two cohorts.