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THE BIOCHEMISTRY OF PARKINSON'S DISEASE

2005; Annual Reviews; Volume: 74; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1146/annurev.biochem.74.082803.133400

1545-4509

Mark Cookson,

Neurological disorders and treatments

Several genes have been identified for monogenic disorders that variably resemble Parkinson's disease. Dominant mutations in the gene encoding alpha-synuclein enhance the propensity of this protein to aggregate. As a consequence, these patients have a widespread disease with protein inclusion bodies in several brain areas. In contrast, mutations in several recessive genes (parkin, DJ-1, and PINK1) produce neuronal cell loss but generally without protein aggregation pathology. Progress has been made in understanding some of the mechanisms of toxicity: Parkin is an E3 ubiquitin ligase and DJ-1 and PINK1 appear to protect against mitochondrial damage. However, we have not yet fully resolved how the recessive genes relate to alpha-synuclein, or whether they represent different ways to induce a similar phenotype.