A stem-cell ageing hypothesis on the origin of Parkinson's disease

A transcriptome-wide blood expression dataset of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and controls was analyzed under the hypothesis-rich mathematical framework. The analysis pointed towards differential expression in blood cells in many of the processes known or predicted to be disrupted in PD. We suggest that circulating blood cells in PD patients can be in a full-blown PD-expression state. We put forward the hypothesis that sporadic PD can originate as a case of hematopoietic stem cell/differentiation process expression program defect and suggest this research direction deserves further investigation.