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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Parkinson’s Disease and Aging-related Movement Disorders
Volume 17 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2025.1511272
This article is part of the Research Topic Advancing personalized diagnosis and treatment in Parkinson's Disease: Integrating biomarkers, neuroimaging, and artificial intelligence View all 3 articles
Parkin characteristics and Blood biomarkers of Parkinson's disease in WPBLC study
Provisionally accepted
He HaiJun 
Xi Xiong 
Yi Zheng *
Jialong Hou Tao Jiang *
Weiwei Quan Jiani Huang * Jiaxue Xu * Keke Chen * Jingjing Qian * Jinlai Cai * Yao Lu * Mengjia Lian *
Cheng-Long Xie Ji Luo *- First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
The exact mechanisms of PD are unclear, but Parkin-mediated mitophagy dysfunction is believed to play a key role. We investigated whether blood levels of Parkin and other biomarkers are linked to the risk of developing PD.Methods: Baseline blood measures of Parkin and other biomarkers, including Homocysteine, carcinoembryonic antigen, Urea, total proteins, total cholesterol, creatine kinase, and albumin, were collected from 197 clinically diagnosed Parkinson's disease participants and 107 age-matched healthy controls in Wenzhou Parkinson's Biomarkers and Living Characteristics study. We conducted bioinformatics analysis using three datasets from the GEO database: GSE90514 (Cohort 1: PD=4, HC=4), GSE7621 (Cohort 2: PD=16, HC=9), and GSE205450 (Cohort 3: PD=69, HC=81).Results: Using a bioinformatic approach, we identified dysregulated biological processes in PD patients with PRKN mutations. Compared to controls, significant abnormalities were observed in blood levels of Parkin, Hcy, total proteins, urea, albumin, and CEA in PD patients. A model incorporating Parkin, Hcy, total proteins, and urea effectively distinguished PD from healthy controls, achieving a higher accuracy (AUC 0.841) than other biomarker combinations. Gene set enrichment analysis suggested that pathways such as PINK1-Parkin-mediated mitophagy, urea cycle, cysteine degradation, and riboflavin metabolism may be involved in PRKN mutation. Additionally, the link between Parkin and PD was partially mediated by CEA and albumin, not by Hcy, total proteins, or urea.Our findings indicate that blood Parkin levels may be a minimally invasive biomarker for PD diagnosis. The model, which included Parkin, Hcy, total proteins, and urea, effectively distinguished PD from HC with greater accuracy.
Keywords: parkin, blood biomarkers, mitophagy, Parkinson's diseaseas, bioinformatics
Received: 14 Oct 2024; Accepted: 13 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 HaiJun, Xiong, Zheng, Hou, Jiang, Quan, Huang, Xu, Chen, Qian, Cai, Lu, Lian, Xie and Luo. 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:
Yi Zheng, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
Tao Jiang, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
Jiani Huang, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
Jiaxue Xu, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
Keke Chen, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
Jingjing Qian, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
Jinlai Cai, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
Yao Lu, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
Mengjia Lian, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
Ji Luo, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
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