Identification of key pathways and transcription factors related to Parkinson disease in genome wide

Parkinson disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease. Most people with PD are idiopathic, with no specific known cause. Recently, several studies have indicated small proportion of PD cases may result from a mutation in some specific genes. However, the involved pathways of these genes and the co-expression patterns of associated pathways still remain unclear. Here, we aimed to systematically investigate PD related pathways by using microarray dataset GSE7621 from the public database library of gene expression omnibus and gene set enrichment analysis on the datasets. Furthermore, candidate transcription factors were also explored by distant regulatory elements software. As a result, 11 up-regulated pathways (such as glycosaminoglycan degradation) and 24 down-regulated pathways (such as ErbB signaling pathway and Long-term depression) were identified as PD related. Most of them were classified into the maps of human diseases, organismal system, and metabolism with no previous reports. Finally, we constructed co-expression networks of related pathways with the significant core genes and transcription factors, such as OCT and HNF3. All of these may be helpful to better understand the molecular mechanisms of human PD in genome wide.