Abstract: Research on neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson´s disease (PD), Huntington’s disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is becoming increasingly important in our society. Due to the ageing of the population, the prevalence of these diseases continue to rise worldwide, and causal cures are not yet available (Erkkinen et al., 2018). This Perspective focusses on PD, a movement disorder of the central nervous system with an estimated prevalence between 65 and 1250/100,000 in Europe, affecting about 1 percent of the population older than 60 years. The clinical symptoms include motor symptoms like bradykinesia, tremor or rigidity which are associated with loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra and their innervating axonal fibers to the striatum. Additional non-motor symptoms may consist in depression, hyposmia, cognitive decline or constipation due to impaired motility of the gastrointestinal tract. The aggregation and dysfunction of the protein α-Synuclein (αSyn) in dopaminergic and surrounding cells is the major pathological hallmark of the disease. Its course is significantly influenced by inflammatory processes that also involve non-neuronal cell types such as astroglia, microglia and T cells. Currently, several environmental factors are discussed to influence the development and progression of PD such as the microbiome composition of the gastrointestinal tract. The human gut contains about 160 bacterial species which are essential for the digestion of dietary fibers and the synthesis of several proteins or vitamins. Therefore, the microbiome contributes to the human enteral metabolism and several direct effects on human health have been demonstrated (Rowland et al., 2018).