Mutations Associated With Parkinson s Disease

The majority of subjects with the degenerative Parkinson s Disease present at around the age of 70 years. Other subjects develop this brain disease before the age of 40 years. This early onset presentation is more likely to have a direct genetic cause than the degenerative form of the disease. Our understanding of the genetic causes of early onset Parkinson s Disease may help us find therapies for both the genetic and more degenerative illnesses. Our laboratory has found that one of the genetic mutations associated with early onset Parkinson s Disease, in a gene called PARK2 results in impaired uptake of fat into cells. This may have detrimental effects in the brain, as the brain requires fat to make cholesterol and to send brain signals. A finding in mice lacking PARK2, is that they are resistant to diet induced diabetes and obesity and to fatty liver. These data suggests that the systemic and brain effects of low fat uptake may be opposing, with low fat uptake having a beneficial effect against risk factors such as obesity and diabetes but increasing the risk for brain diseases. To begin to test whether this is the case in subjects with PARK2 mutations we propose to test their fat uptake and glucose and insulin sensitivity.