MicroRNAs in Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease commonly affecting the older population. Loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra of brain leads to impairment of motor activities as well as cognitive defects. There are many underlying causes to this disease, both genetic and epigenetic, which are yet to be fully explored. Non-coding RNAs are significant part of our genome and are involved in various cellular processes. MicroRNAs, which are small non-coding RNAs having 20-22 nucleotides, are involved in many underlying mechanisms of pathogenesis of several neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson's. This review focuses on the role played by microRNAs in regulating various genes responsible for the onset and pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease and various literature evidences pointing at the usefulness of targeting specific microRNAs as a potential alternate therapeutic strategy for successful impairment of the disease progression. This review also discusses about various biofluid-based microRNA markers which may be potentially utilized for diagnostic purposes.