Parkinson's disease peripheral immune biomarker profile: a multicentre, cross-sectional and longitudinal study

Background Inflammations play crucial role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (PD), however, their possible value in the diagnosis or tracking of the progress of PD is still limited, because of discordant results in the literature and a lack of information regarding its reproducibility. Thus, overall longitudinal and cross-sectional studies are needed. This multicentre study was designed to investigate the association between multiple peripheral immune biomarkers and the development and progression of PD. Methods This was a longitudinal and multicentre study. First, we measured the levels of five typical cytokines and five focused chemokines in 76 PD patients and 76 healthy controls (HCs) in a discovery cohort. Then, a validation cohort of 80 PD and 80 HC participants was recruited from four multicentre locations. In addition, a prospective follow-up of early-stage PD patients was performed with significant biomarkers. Finally, we performed further verification in an exploratory set of patients with idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder (iRBD). Results In the discovery set, CXCL12, CX3CL1 and IL-8 levels were significantly higher in PD patients than in HCs ( p < 0.05). The receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve for a combination of these three biomarkers produced a high area under the curve (AUC) of 0.89 ( p < 0.001). Moreover, four biomarkers (the previous three and CCL15) were significantly associated with PD in the discovery and validation cohorts. Furthermore, in the prospective follow-up cohort, CX3CL1 levels were associated with motor progression after a mean interval of 43 months. In addition, CX3CL1 and IL-8 levels were higher in iRBD patients than in HCs. Conclusion We showed a correlation between a profile of four peripheral immune biomarkers and PD development and progression. Our findings may provide a basis whereby PD patients with abnormal inflammatory profiles can be identified and receive timely therapeutic interventions.