ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Parkinson’s Disease and Aging-related Movement Disorders
Integrated bioinformatics analysis reveals Netrin-1 as a key molecular link between Parkinson's disease and heart failure
Provisionally accepted
- 1Peking University, Beijing, China
- 2Beijing Life Science Academy, BeiJing, China
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The objective of the study was to investigate the hub genes and potential mechanisms linking Parkinson's disease (PD) to heart failure (HF) using multiple integrative bioinformatics tools. For this analysis, we collected one HF dataset and three PD datasets from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Using the weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), we identified key genes through co-expression module analysis in both conditions. Given the hypothesis that PD may promote HF onset and progression through secretory proteins, we focused on identifying secretory proteins associated with PD. To further refine our findings, we explored immune cell signatures in HF to uncover the relationship between hub genes and the immunological landscape. Finally, through protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis, we identified three key genes—RELN, SLIT1, and NTN1. Notably, we confirmed that Netrin-1 encoding by NTN1 undergoes alterations in blood, striatum and heart samples from PD models, suggesting its potential role in impacting cardiac function. These insights highlight the coexistence of PD and HF and suggest new avenues for investigating strategies to prevent HF in PD patients, particularly by exploring the role of Netrin-1 in the heart and its potential for cardioprotection.
Keywords: Parkinson's disease, Heart Failure, RNA-Seq, Netrin-1, bioinformatics
Received: 20 Sep 2025; Accepted: 03 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ni, Wang, Li, Chen, Hongwei and Hu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Huan Chen
Hou Hongwei
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