Analysis of gut microbiota-derived extracellular vesicles isolated from newly diagnosed multiple sclerosis patients

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system. MS is characterized by a gradual loss of neuronal cells, leading to physical and cognitive impairment over time. The gut microbiota has been suggested to be an important environmental factor in MS, but the mechanism of action is vastly unknown. We suggest that production of extracellular vesicles (EVs) is one mechanism how the gut microbiota is able to influence host physiology in health and disease. In this work, EVs were isolated from fecal samples of 16 newly diagnosed MS patients and 18 healthy controls. The object was to determine the protein composition of EVs but the final analysis was hindered due to unfortunate events caused by SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Nanoparticle tracking analysis of EVs showed that concentration and size distribution of EVs was similar between MS patients and healthy controls. Additionally, this work accomplished to show that as low as 100 mg of fecal material was sufficient for EV isolation, which can be used to improve EV isolation practicalities.