The gut microbiota promotes pain in fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia is a prevalent syndrome characterized by widespread pain in the absence of evident tissue injury or pathology, making it one of the most mysterious chronic pain conditions. The composition of the gut microbiota in individuals with fibromyalgia differs from that of healthy controls, but its functional role in the syndrome is unknown. Here, we show that fecal microbiota transplantation from fibromyalgia patients, but not from healthy controls, into germ-free mice induces pain and numerous molecular phenotypes that parallel known changes in fibromyalgia patients, including immune activation and metabolomic profile alterations. Replacing the fibromyalgia microbiota with a healthy microbiota substantially alleviated pain in mice. An open-label trial in women with fibromyalgia (Registry MOH_2021-11-04_010374) showed that transplantation of a healthy microbiota is associated with reduced pain and improved quality of life. We conclude that altered gut microbiota has a role in fibromyalgia pain, highlighting it as a promising target for therapeutic interventions.
Authors
- Amir Minerbi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4889-0105)
- Arkady Khoutorsky (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3846-8728)
- Jeffrey S. Mogil (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1359-5720)
- Calvin Wong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7728-3035)
- Shannon Tansley (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2387-3800)
- Yves De Koninck (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5779-9330)
- Feng Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8290-2849)
- Tali Sahar
- Masha Prager‐Khoutorsky (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5388-4602)
- Kevin C. Lister (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7645-3928)
- Yoram Shir (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2049-3629)
- Inbar Kesten (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8010-0068)
- Philippe Séguéla (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7537-4427)
- Manon Defaye (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-3535-7003)
- Volodya Hovhannisyan
- Behrang Sharif (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6451-2596)
- Weihua Cai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2216-1422)
- Haggai Bar‐Yoseph (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0376-4930)
- Susan Westfall (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4974-0379)
- May Haddad (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0027-2853)
- Nicholas J. B. Brereton (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2434-3249)
- Louis-Étienne Lorenzo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5514-0049)
- Nicole Brown (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3184-0550)
- Jonathan A. Fan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9816-9979)
- Emerson Krock (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8501-2945)
- Tseela Hoffman
- Neil Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4263-1911)
- Mehdi Hooshmandi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1592-8664)
- Irah L. King (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6990-7231)
- Christophe Altier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2209-6536)
- Milena Pitashny (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0711-4102)
- David Ho-Tieng
- Ji Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8816-9721)
- Emmanuel González (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5567-2125)
- R. Haddad (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3015-0288)
- Vibhu Kumar
- Nasser Abdullah
- Reut Laan
- Charlotte Clayton
- Bavanitha Thurairajah
Institutions
- University College Dublin (IE)
- University of Calgary (CA)
- Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (IL)
- Rambam Health Care Campus (IL)
- McGill University Health Centre (CA)
- Centre for Research on Brain Language and Music (CA)
- McGill Genome Centre (CA)
- Université Laval (CA)
- McGill University (CA)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Neuron
- Published
- 2025-04-24
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2025.03.032
- Citations
- 29
- Primary Topic
- Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 42.67
Funders
- Weston Family Foundation