Whole blood transcriptome profile identifies motor neurone disease (MND) RNA biomarker signatures

Abstract

Blood-based biomarkers for motor neuron disease are needed for better diagnosis, progression prediction, and clinical trial monitoring. We used whole blood-derived total RNA and performed whole transcriptome analysis to compare the gene expression profiles in (motor neurone disease) MND patients to the control subjects. We compared 42 MND patients to 42 aged and sex-matched healthy controls and described the whole transcriptome profile characteristic for MND. In addition to the formal differential analysis, we performed functional annotation of the genomics data and identified the molecular pathways that are differentially regulated in MND patients. We identified 12,972 genes differentially expressed in the blood of MND patients compared to age and sex-matched controls. Functional genomic annotation identified activation of the pathways related to neurodegeneration, RNA transcription, RNA splicing and extracellular matrix reorganisation. Blood-based whole transcriptomic analysis can reliably differentiate MND patients from controls and can provide useful information for the clinical management of the disease and clinical trials.