Expression profiling of peripheral blood mononuclear cells in normal controls and patients with Parkinson's disease. Homo sapiens

Autophagy is a highly conserved degradation pathway whereby not only cytosolic components but also aberrant proteins are sequestered within double-membraned vesicles. Parkinson's disease (PD) is pathologically characterized by accumulation of phosphorylated α-synuclein in the neuronal cytoplasm and its accumulation occurs in the peripheral autonomic nervous system as well as the central nervous system. In the brains of patients with PD, abnormal autophagy is known to occur and be involved with neurodegeneration. To investigate abnormal autophagy in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) in the patients with PD, we performed whole transcriptome analysis of PBMC obtained from 9 normal controls and 10 patients with PD. Overall design: PBMC in 9 normal controls and 10 patients with PD were isolated by Ficoll-paque plus (GE Healthcare, 17144002) centrifugation of heparinized blood and frozen at -80 degrees Celsius until microarray or qRT-PCR.