Fig. 3

Expression of inflammatory genes in T cells from PD patients is associated with disease progression and disease duration. A Expression of 249 inflammatory genes was quantified with a NanoString expression assay in isolated CD3⁺ T cells from HC (n = 14, f/m = 10/4) and PD patients (n = 16, f/m = 4/12). Mean expression of all 249 quantified transcripts was slightly increased in PD patients (p = 0.24). B PD patients could not be identified based on the expression signature of all 249 transcripts (complete linkage with Euclidean distance). C Volcano plot and heatmap (D) of the differential expression analysis between HC and PD T cells. Nine genes were significantly differentially expressed in PD T cells (fdr q < 0.05, fold change < − 1.4/> 1.4). None of the nine genes’ expression was significantly affected by the age or sex of participants (two-way ANOVA). E Significant up-regulation of selected transcripts could be verified in an independent validation cohort by RT-qPCR (HC/PD n = 12/12). F WGCNA analysis reveals six blocks (modules “A”–“F”) of genes, which are co-expressed in a similar fashion amongst all samples. The weighted co-expression scores of these modules do not correlate significantly with case (HC or PD), sex, age or age at disease onset. Three gene modules (“B”, “E” and “F”) significantly correlated with disease duration and disease progression in PD patients. G GO enrichment analyses of modules “B”, “E” and “F” against the full list of all 249 quantified inflammatory genes reveals association of disease progression with genes important in acute inflammatory response and gliogenesis, and of disease duration with I-κB/NF-κB signaling. Boxplot: median ± interquartile range; lines (E): median; heatmap rows (genes) scaled to z-scores; *p < 0.05, Mann–Whitney U test; WGCNA correlation assessed with Pearson’s correlation coefficient; GO fdr q < 0.05