Relative Levels of DNM2, EPN2, and EXOC4 Gene Expression in Peripheral Blood of Parkinson’s Disease Patients

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a widespread neurological disorder, which is associated with degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. The hallmark of this disease is its long latency period, which makes the search for prognostic biomarkers an essential task. To study the changes in gene expression in the peripheral blood of patients at early stages of PD, who received no treatment, is an approach that can be employed for PD biomarker detection. Data have recently been obtained indicating that impaired membrane transport may play an important role in PD pathogenesis. For this reason, in the present work, changes in the relative mRNA levels for the DNM2 , EPN2 , and EXOC4 genes in the peripheral blood of treated and untreated Parkinson’s disease patients have been analyzed. Two groups of patients with Parkinson’s disease and two comparison groups, a neurological control and healthy volunteers, were included in the present study. mRNA levels were studied using reverse transcription and real-time PCR (TaqMan technology). The study revealed no significant changes in the expression levels of the studied genes in the group of untreated PD patients. However, in the group of PD patients, who received treatment, statistically significant changes in the DNM2 gene expression at mRNA level have been observed. The results of the present work suggest that the DNM2 , EPN2 , and EXOC4 genes are not involved in the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease at the mRNA level in the patients with early PD and, therefore, cannot be used as prognostic biomarkers for this disease. The changes in the expression of the DNM2 gene in the treated PD patients suggest that this gene is involved in processes associated with dopamine agonist therapy.