Identification of aberrant circulating miRNAs in Parkinson's disease plasma samples

Objective: To detect the aberrant expression of circulating miRNAs and explore the potential early diagnostic biomarkers in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Methods: Plasma samples were collected from 25 treatment-naive PD-diagnosed patients and 25 healthy controls followed by a real-time PCR-based miRNA screening analysis of neuron disease-related miRNAs. Results: A subset of miRNAs with aberrant expression levels in the plasma of PD-diagnosed patients were identified including upregulation of miR-27a and downregulation of let-7a, let-7f, miR-142-3p, and miR-222 with the AUC values more than 0.8 derived from the receiver operating characteristic curves. Conclusions: The high sensitivity and specificity of the circulating miRNAs may enable early diagnosis of PD. The study provides a group of novel miRNA candidates for detecting PD.