Objective: The aim of our case–control study is to compare entire blood metabolomic profiles obtained from treated PD patients, de novo PD patients and controls, and to study the perturbations correlated with disease duration, disease stage and motor impairment.

Background: About 90% of cases of Parkinson’s Disease are idiopathic, and their pathogenesis may be explained assuming a multifactorial origin. Multifactorial diseases can be studied using metabolomics, since the cellular metabolome reflects the interplay between genes and environment.

Methods: We collected entire blood samples from 16 de novo parkinsonian patients, 84 treated parkinsonian patients, and 42 age matched healthy controls. Metabolomic profiles have been obtained using gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Multivariate statistical analysis has been performed using the supervised models partial least square discriminant analysis and partial least square regression.

Results: This approach allowed separation between discrete classes (de novo patients from controls, treated patients form controls, de novo from treated patients) and stratification of treated patients according to continuous variables (disease duration, disease stage, motor score). Analysis of single metabolites or entire pathways involved in class separations and patient stratification allowed to discover unexpected possible perturbations or recognize already studied mechanisms correlated with disease onset, stage, duration, motor score and pharmacological treatment.

Conclusions: Metabolomics can be useful in pathogenetic studies and biomarker discovery. This latter needs large-scale validation and comparison with other neurodegenerative conditions.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/a-metabolomic-signature-of-treated-and-drug-naive-patients-with-parkinson-disease-a-pilot-study/