Study Rationale: Accumulation of toxic protein aggregates is a hallmark of neurodegenerative disorders that include Parkinson’s disease (PD), Lewy body dementia (LBD) and multiple system atrophy (MSA). Cataloguing these pathological protein changes, a proteomic approach, could reveal information that would facilitate diagnosis or targeted treatments for these disorders. Although studies have shown aggregation of proteins associated with PD across different tissues and using different analyses and platforms, an exhaustive analysis that includes all of this data has never been performed. In this study, we will conduct in-depth analyses of all published proteomic papers for PD, LBD and MSA.
Hypothesis: We hypothesize that establishment of a central repository that provides meta-analysis of public proteomic papers will enhance understanding of the molecular mechanisms that drive PD and provide information of value to investigations that seek disease-modifying therapies.
Study Design:We will compile data from all of the recent proteomic studies that have been published and record the relevant meta-data (such as sample size, analytical platform and model). We will then generate a central repository where all the sum mary statistics for all those studies will be aggregated and made easily accessible to other investigators.
Impact on Diagnosis/Treatment of Parkinson’s disease: This analysis will help to identify consistent proteins changes associated with PD.
Next Steps for Development: Following meta-analyses of the published studies, as well as those performed by the Ibanez lab as part of the POWER analyses, we will produce a website or a browser summarizing our results, similar to one that has been developed for AD (https://www.alzforum.org/alzbiomarker/), and make this available to the PD community.