Increasing evidence supports the role of brain and systemic inflammation in the etiology of Parkinson disease (PD). We used gene expression profiling to examine the activation state of peripheral blood monocytes in 18 patients with early, untreated PD and 16 healthy control (HC) subjects. Monocytes were isolated by negative selection, and gene expression studied by RNA-seq and gene set enrichment analysis. A computational model that incorporated case/control status, sex, and the interaction between case/control status and sex was utilized. We found that there was a striking effect of sex on monocyte gene expression. There was inflammatory activation of monocytes in females with PD, with enrichment of gene sets associated with interferon gamma stimulation. In males, the activation patterns were more heterogeneous. These data point to the importance of systemic monocyte activation in PD, and the importance of studies which examine the differential effects of sex on pathophysiology of the disease.

越来越多的证据支持大脑和全身炎症在帕金森病 (PD) 病因学中的作用。我们使用基因表达谱来检查 18 名早期未治疗 PD 患者和 16 名健康对照 (HC) 受试者的外周血单核细胞的激活状态。通过负选择分离单核细胞，通过RNA-seq和基因集富集分析研究基因表达。使用了一个计算模型，该模型结合了病例/对照状态、性别以及病例/对照状态与性别之间的相互作用。我们发现性别对单核细胞基因表达有显着影响。患有 PD 的女性中存在单核细胞的炎症激活，与干扰素 γ 刺激相关的基因集富集。在男性中，激活模式更加异质。