Scientists close in on genes responsible for Parkinson’s disease

Scientists have identified 570 genes that act abnormally during the development of Parkinson’s Disease, a finding which could help doctors predict the likelihood of it developing, and provide targets for new treatments.

The research published in Neurogenetics, by the team from Imperial College London and the University of Liege, Belgium, uses microarrays to analyse brains from Parkinson’s patients. Microarrays are laboratory chips able to pick out which genes are active when different processes are occurring in the brain. When they analysed brains from people with Parkinson’s, they found that out of all 25,000 human genes, regulation of 570 was highly abnormal in Parkinson’s brains compared with non-diseased brains. This is the first study on Parkinson’s disease where all human genes were studied.

The researchers analysed 23 brains from recently deceased patients, 15 affected by Parkinson’s and 8 control brains. The majority of brains were provided by the UK Parkinson’s Disease Society Tissue Bank at Imperial College London.

Dr Linda Moran from Imperial College London and one of the authors of the paper, said: “This research shows there are a considerable number of genes associated with the development of Parkinson’s, potentially providing new clues for how to treat this disease. Now that we can identify these genes it may be possible to develop new therapies to help the increasing numbers of Parkinson’s patients.”

The team, led by Professor Manuel Graeber, analysed two parts of the brain which are affected by neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s; the substantia nigra in the mid-brain, and the cerebral cortex. They were able to eliminate around 15,000 genes from any role in Parkinson’s, as they were not found to be active in the substantia nigra, the part of the brain most affected by Parkinson’s.

Dawn Duke, MS, from Imperial College London, and one of the authors of the paper said: “In addition to identifying those genes linked with the development of Parkinson’s, this research has also shown that many of these genes were especially active in Parkinson’s brains. By limiting the activity of these genes, we may be able to control or even stop the development of Parkinson’s.”