Parkinson's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Parkinson's Disease, including details on symptoms, treatment, genetics, medication.

The dardarin G 2019 S mutation is a common cause of Parkinson's disease but not other neurodegenerative diseases.

Hernandez D, Paisan Ruiz C, Crawley A, Malkani R, Werner J, Gwinn-Hardy K, Dickson D, Wavrant Devrieze F, Hardy J, Singleton A

Laboratory of Neurogenetics, National Institutes on Aging and of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.

Mutations in the leucine-rich kinase 2 gene (LRRK 2) encoding dardarin, on chromosome 12, are a common cause of familial and sporadic Parkinson's disease. The most common mutation, a heterozygous 6055 G>A transition (G 2019 S) accounts for approximately 3--10% of familial Parkinson's disease and 1--8% sporadic Parkinson's disease in several European-derived populations. Some families with disease caused by LRRK 2 mutations have been reported to include patients with highly variable clinical and pathological features. We screened for the most common LRRK 2 mutation in a series of patients with Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's disease, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, Multiple System Atrophy and frontotemporal dementia, as well as in neurologically normal controls. The mutation was found only in Parkinson's disease patients or their relatives and not in those with other neurodegenerative disease.

Published 14 September 2005 in Neurosci Lett, 389(3): 137-9.
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