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 human prion gene M129V polymorphism is not associated with idiopathic Parkinson's disease in three distinct populations.

Scholz SW, Xiromerisiou G, Fung HC, Eerola J, Hellström O, Papadimitriou A, Hadjigeorgiou GM, Tienari PJ, Fernandez HH, Mandel R, Okun MS, Gwinn-Hardy K, Singleton AB

Molecular Genetics Unit, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Building 35, Room 1A-1012, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. scholzs@mail.nih.gov

Coexistence of prion disease and idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD) has been previously described. It remains unclear whether this relationship may reflect the high incidence of IPD or whether both prion and IPD share common pathogenetic mechanisms. For this reason, we investigated the genotype distribution of the M129V polymorphism of the human prion gene for association with IPD (controls: n = 398, IPD cases: n = 400). No association between genotypes in codon 129 and IPD was detected in three distinct populations, suggesting that this PRNP polymorphism has no direct influence on the susceptibility to IPD.

Published 13 February 2006 in Neurosci Lett, 395(3): 227-9.
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