We read with interest the recent article by Zhang et al that reported a higher risk of developing dementia in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), with the largest increase in Alzheimer’s disease (AD).1 These findings align with a growing body of evidence which links gut inflammation or leaky gut with neurodegeneration. Lee et al discussed the known shared pathophysiological links between IBD and Parkinson’s disease (PD), underscoring the importance of genetic overlap, microbiota gut-brain axis, autoimmunity, mitochondrial function and autophagy.2 We would like to highlight another less-explored biological connection: microRNAs (miRNAs). miRNAs are small non-coding RNAs, which regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level by silencing targeting mRNA(s). Intriguingly, miRNAs have been implicated in the pathogenesis of both IBD and neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs). miRNAs have emerged as important regulators of gut and blood–brain barrier (BBB) integrity.3 4 Complementing these findings, we recently found significantly upregulated miR-23a-3p and miR-150-5 p in the blood of patients who had undergone successful intestinal microbiota transplantation (IMT) for recurrent Clostridium difficile infection (rCDI).5 Furthermore, we demonstrated the cytoprotective effects of combining these two IMT-regulated miRNAs in intestinal epithelial cell (IEC) …

中文翻译：

---

连接炎症性肠病和神经退行性疾病：microRNA 作为共享治疗干预措施

我们饶有兴趣地阅读了Zhang 等人最近发表的文章，该文章报道了炎症性肠病 (IBD) 患者患痴呆症的风险较高，其中阿尔茨海默病 (AD) 的增加幅度最大。1 这些发现与越来越多的证据相一致它将肠道炎症或肠漏与神经退行性疾病联系起来。 Lee 等人讨论了 IBD 和帕金森病 (PD) 之间已知的共同病理生理联系，强调了遗传重叠、微生物群肠脑轴、自身免疫、线粒体功能和自噬的重要性。2 我们想强调另一种较少探索的生物学联系：微小RNA（miRNA）。 miRNA 是小型非编码 RNA，通过沉默靶标 mRNA 来调节转录后水平的基因表达。有趣的是，miRNA 与 IBD 和神经退行性疾病 (NDD) 的发病机制有关。 miRNA 已成为肠道和血脑屏障 (BBB) 完整性的重要调节因子。3 4 作为对这些发现的补充，我们最近发现接受成功手术的患者血液中 miR-23a-3p 和 miR-150-5 p 显着上调用于治疗复发性艰难梭菌感染 (rCDI) 的肠道微生物群移植 (IMT)。5 此外，我们证明了在肠上皮细胞 (IEC) 中结合这两种 IMT 调节的 miRNA 的细胞保护作用……