Mitochondria-mitochondria interaction networks show altered topological patterns in Parkinson’s disease

SUMMARY Mitochondrial dysfunction is linked to pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, individual-mitochondria-based analyses do not show a uniform feature in PD patients. Since mitochondria interact with each other, we hypothesize that PD-related features might exist in topological patterns of mitochondria-mitochondria interaction networks (MINs). Here we showed that MINs form non-classical scale-free supernetworks in colonic ganglia both from healthy controls and PD patients, however, altered topological patterns are observed in PD patients. These patterns highly correlate with PD clinical scores and a machine-learning approach based on the MIN features accurately distinguish between patients and controls with an area-under-curve value of 0.989. The MINs of midbrain dopaminergic neurons (mDANs) derived from several genetic PD patients also display specific changes. CRISPR/CAS9-based genome correction of alpha-synuclein point mutations reverses the changes in MINs of mDANs. Our MIN network analysis opens a new dimension for a deeper characterization of various complex diseases with mitochondrial dysregulation.