Mass analysis of microRNA biomarkers reveals trends in Parkinson’s disease

One of the largest RNA biomarker studies ever conducted has discovered a correlation between the level of noncoding RNA molecules in the bloodstream and the progression of Parkinson’s disease. The Research Group for Clinical Bioinformatics at Saarland University (Saarbrücken, Germany), led by Andreas Keller, conducted analyses of 5450 blood samples from 1614 patients in the international Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative cohort, generating around 320 billion data points. The researchers measured the blood concentrations of microRNAs – short, noncoding sequences of RNA that regulate post-transcriptional gene expression – and used artificial intelligence methods to analyze the data. The results, published in...