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Parkinson's disease (PD) is an irreversible and incurable multigenic neurodegenerative disorder. It involves progressive loss of mid brain dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SN). We compared brain gene expression profiles with those from the peripheral blood cells of a separate sample of PD patients to identify disease-associated genes. Here, we demonstrate the use of gene expression profiling of brain and blood for detecting valid targets and identifying early PD biomarkers. Implementing this systematic approach, we discovered putative PD risk genes in brain, delineated biological processes and molecular functions that may be particularly disrupted in PD and also identified several putative PD biomarkers in blood. 20 of the differentially expressed genes in SN were also found to be differentially expressed in the blood. Further application of this methodology to other brain regions and neurological disorders should facilitate the discovery of highly reliable and reproducible candidate risk genes and biomarkers for PD. The identification of valid peripheral biomarkers for PD may ultimately facilitate early identification, intervention, and prevention efforts as well., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Background: We aimed to identify the prognostic value of hepcidin in discriminating against the survival outcome of canine babesiosis. Methods: Semi-nested polymerase chain reaction was performed to confirm the presence of infection. Existence of oxidative stress and inflammatory response, changes in systemic iron status and hepcidin level were assessed in the study population. Based on the outcome Babesia infected dogs were classified into survivors (n=18) and non-survivors (n=14) of infection. 32 healthy dogs formed the control group. Conclusion: In non-survivors of infection, serum hepcidin was positively associated with C-reactive protein (P<0.01), serum iron (P<0.01), transferrin iron-binding capacity (P<0.05), unsaturated iron-binding capacity (P<0.01), thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (P<0.05) and negatively associated with catalase (P<0.01), zinc (P<0.01) and low haemoglobin density (P<0.01). The prognostic cut-off value of hepcidin in discriminating the survivability of infected dogs was 32.32 ng/mL with 100.00% specificity and 92.86% sensitivity. The area under the curve of hepcidin in discriminating survivability was about 0.984 and Youden's index was 0.928. Hence, hepcidin can predict the survival outcome of the disease enabling intensive care for animals with a cut-off value of hepcidin more than 32.32 ng/mL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]