Human Genetic Variation and Parkinson’s Disease

• Main Author: Sun Ju Chung
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Korean Movement Disorders Society 2010-05-01
• Series: Journal of Movement Disorders
• Subjects: Parkinson’s disease; Genome; Genetic variation; Genome-wide association study
• Online Access: http://e-jmd.org/upload/jmd-3-1-1-1.pdf

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disorder with multifactorial etiology. In the past decade, the genetic causes of monogenic forms of familial PD have been defined. However, the etiology and pathogenesis of the majority of sporadic PD cases that occur in outbred populations have yet to be clarified. The recent development of resources such as the International HapMap Project and technological advances in high-throughput genotyping have provided new basis for genetic association studies of common complex diseases, including PD. A new generation of genome-wide association studies will soon offer a potentially powerful approach for mapping causal genes and will likely change treatment and alter our perception of the genetic determinants of PD. However, the execution and analysis of such studies will require great care.