Network Protein Interaction in Parkinson’s Disease and Periodontitis Interplay: A Preliminary Bioinformatic Analysis

Abstract

Recent studies supported a clinical association between Parkinson’s disease (PD) and periodontitis. Hence, investigating possible interactions between proteins associated to these two conditions is of interest. In this study, we conducted a protein–protein network interaction analysis with recognized genes encoding proteins with variants strongly associated with PD and periodontitis. Genes of interest were collected via the Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) database. Then, we conducted a protein interaction analysis, using the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins (STRING) database, with a highest confidence cutoff of 0.9 and sensitivity analysis with confidence cutoff of 0.7. Our protein network casts a comprehensive analysis of potential protein–protein interactions between PD and periodontitis. This analysis may underpin valuable information for new candidate molecular mechanisms between PD and periodontitis and may serve new potential targets for research purposes. These results should be carefully interpreted, giving the limitations of this approach.