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Tiny But Mighty: Promising Roles of MicroRNAs in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Parkinson’s Disease

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Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common age-related neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer’s disease. To date, the clinical diagnosis of PD is primarily based on the late onset of motor impairments. Unfortunately, at this stage, most of the dopaminergic neurons may have already been lost, leading to the limited clinical benefits of current therapeutics. Therefore, early identification of PD, especially at the prodromal stage, is still a main challenge in the diagnosis and management of this disease. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) in cerebrospinal fluid or peripheral blood have been proposed as putative biomarkers to assist in PD diagnosis and therapy. In this review, we systematically summarize the changes of miRNA expression profiles in PD patients, and highlight their putative roles in the diagnosis and treatment of this devastating disease.

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Acknowledgements

This review was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81430021 and 81370470).

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  1. Ying Wang and Zhaofei Yang have contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Clinical Research on Neurological Diseases, the First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116021, China

    Ying Wang, Zhaofei Yang & Weidong Le

  2. Liaoning Provincial Key Laboratory for Research on the Pathogenic Mechanisms of Neurological Diseases, the First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116021, China

    Ying Wang, Zhaofei Yang & Weidong Le

  3. Collaborative Innovation Center for Brain Science, the First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116021, China

    Weidong Le

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  1. Ying Wang
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Correspondence to Weidong Le.

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Wang, Y., Yang, Z. & Le, W. Tiny But Mighty: Promising Roles of MicroRNAs in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Parkinson’s Disease. Neurosci. Bull. 33, 543–551 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12264-017-0160-z

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