AUTHOR=Santiago Jose A. , Potashkin Judith A. 

TITLE=Blood Transcriptomic Meta-analysis Identifies Dysregulation of Hemoglobin and Iron Metabolism in Parkinson’ Disease

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

VOLUME=9

YEAR=2017

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/aging-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2017.00073

DOI=10.3389/fnagi.2017.00073

ISSN=1663-4365

ABSTRACT=<p>Disrupted iron metabolism has been implicated in the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (PD), a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that severely affects movement and coordination, yet the molecular mechanisms underlying this association remain unknown. To this end, we performed a transcriptomic meta-analysis of four blood microarrays in PD. We observed a significant downregulation of genes related to hemoglobin including, hemoglobin delta (<italic>HBD</italic>), alpha hemoglobin stabilizing protein (<italic>ASHP</italic>), genes implicated in iron metabolism including, solute carrier family 11 member 2 (<italic>SLC11A2</italic>), ferrochelatase (<italic>FECH</italic>), and erythrocyte-specific genes including erythrocyte membrane protein (<italic>EPB42</italic>), and 5′-aminolevulinate synthase 2 (<italic>ALAS2</italic>). Pathway and network analysis identified enrichment in processes related to mitochondrial membrane, oxygen transport, oxygen and heme binding, hemoglobin complex, erythrocyte development, tetrapyrrole metabolism and the spliceosome. Collectively, we identified a subnetwork of genes in blood that may provide a molecular explanation for the disrupted hemoglobin and iron metabolism in the pathogenesis of PD.</p>