Frontiers in Neuroscience (Dec 2020)

Meta-Analysis of Differentially Expressed Genes in the Substantia Nigra in Parkinson’s Disease Supports Phenotype-Specific Transcriptome Changes

  • Duong My Phung,
  • Jinwoo Lee,
  • SangKyoon Hong,
  • Young Eun Kim,
  • Jeehee Yoon,
  • Yun Joong Kim,
  • Yun Joong Kim

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.596105
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14

Abstract

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BackgroundStudies regarding differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in Parkinson’s disease (PD) have focused on common upstream regulators or dysregulated pathways or ontologies; however, the relationships between DEGs and disease-related or cell type-enriched genes have not been systematically studied. Meta-analysis of DEGs (meta-DEGs) are expected to overcome the limitations, such as replication failure and small sample size of previous studies.PurposeMeta-DEGs were performed to investigate dysregulated genes enriched with neurodegenerative disorder causative or risk genes in a phenotype-specific manner.MethodsSix microarray datasets from PD patients and controls, for which substantia nigra sample transcriptome data were available, were downloaded from the NINDS data repository. Meta-DEGs were performed using two methods, combining p-values and combing effect size, and common DEGs were used for secondary analyses. Gene sets of cell type-enriched or disease-related genes for PD, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and hereditary progressive ataxia were constructed by curation of public databases and/or published literatures.ResultsOur meta-analyses revealed 449 downregulated and 137 upregulated genes. Overrepresentation analyses with cell type-enriched genes were significant in neuron-enriched genes but not in astrocyte- or microglia-enriched genes. Meta-DEGs were significantly enriched in causative genes for hereditary disorders accompanying parkinsonism but not in genes associated with AD or hereditary progressive ataxia. Enrichment of PD-related genes was highly significant in downregulated DEGs but insignificant in upregulated genes.ConclusionDownregulated meta-DEGs were associated with PD-related genes, but not with other neurodegenerative disorder genes. These results highlight disease phenotype-specific changes in dysregulated genes in PD.

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