Journal of Personalized Medicine Article Gut-Brain Axis Cross-Talk and Limbic Disorders as Biological Basis of Secondary TMAU Luigi Donato 1,2 , Simona Alibrandi 1,3, Concetta Scimone 1,2,* , Andrea Castagnetti 4, Giacomo Rao 5, Antonina Sidoti 1 and Rosalia D’Angelo 1 1 Department of Biomedical and Dental Sciences and Morphofunctional Imaging, Division of Medical Biotechnologies and Preventive Medicine, University of Messina, 98125 Messina, Italy;
[email protected] (L.D.);
[email protected] (S.A.);
[email protected] (A.S.);
[email protected] (R.D.) 2 Department of Biomolecular Strategies, Genetics and Avant-Garde Therapies, I.E.ME.S.T., 90139 Palermo, Italy 3 Department of Chemical, Biological, Pharmaceutical and Environmental Sciences, University of Messina, 98125 Messina, Italy 4 Wellmicro Start Up, Innovative Spin-Off Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, 40129 Bologna, Italy;
[email protected] 5 Central Health Superintendence, Prevention and Research Division, INAIL, 00144 Rome, Italy;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +39-0902213136 Abstract: Background: Trimethylaminuria (TMAU) is a rare metabolic syndrome characterized by the accumulation and the excretion of trimethylamine (TMA), a volatile diet compound produced by gut microbiota. Gut microbiota alterations are mainly involved in the secondary TMAU, whose patients show also different psychiatric conditions. We hypothesized that the biological activity of several molecules acting as intermediate in TMA metabolic reaction might be at the basis of TMAU psychiatric comorbidities. Methods: To corroborate this hypothesis, we performed the analysis Citation: Donato, L.; Alibrandi, S.; of microbiota of both psychiatric suffering secondary TMAU patients and TMAU “mentally ill” Scimone, C.; Castagnetti, A.; Rao, G.; controls, comparing the alteration of metabolites produced by their gut bacteria possibly involved Sidoti, A.; D’Angelo, R.