Introduction: In our previous study, we demonstrated that acupuncture improved gait disturbances, such as hypometric gait, in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). To investigate specific genes that indicate a therapeutic response to acupuncture, we analyzed transcriptome alterations following acupuncture using blood samples collected in our previous clinical trial. Methods: We reanalyzed the clinical data of patients and selected a representative patient with PD for transcriptomic analysis following acupuncture. We examined the expression changes of PD biomarker genes known to be consistently dysregulated in both the brain and blood in patients with PD. We validated these gene expression changes using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) in the blood of five other patients with PD who received acupuncture treatment. Results: After acupuncture treatment, the transcriptomic alterations in the representative patient were similar to those induced by dopaminergic therapy. Among PD biomarkers, ankyrin repeat domain 22 (ANKRD22), which is upregulated after dopaminergic therapy, and synapsin 1 (SYN1), which is the common gene to indicate synaptic dysfunction in PD, were upregulated following acupuncture. These alterations correlated with changes of gait parameters in patients with PD.alterations following acupuncture using blood samples collected in our previous clinical trial. Conclusion: This is the first report on gene expression changes and improvement of gait disturbance in patients with PD following acupuncture. Our data suggest that ANKRD22 and SYN1 can be used as biomarkers for therapeutic response to acupuncture in patients with PD, especially those with gait disturbance.alterations following acupuncture using blood samples collected in our previous clinical trial.

BTNL9, STOX1, ANKRD22, IL1R2, MARCH1, OLFML2B, MAPK8, RAB3A, STXBP1, SYN1, VAMP2, SYN1, GRIN1, GRIN2D, DLGAP3