Neurogenetic correlates of Parkinson's disease: apolipoprotein-E and cytochrome P450 2D6 genetic polymorphism

Brain tissue of 50 patients with morphological confirmed Parkinson's diseas e (PD), blood samples from 149 patients with clinical parkinsonism and from 96 healthy control subjects were collected. Apolipoprotein-E (apo E) and c ytochrome P450 2D6 (CYP2D6) genotyping were performed by PCR followed by re striction fragment analysis. A significantly higher allele frequency of CYP 2D6*4 was found in patients with PD (35%) but not with parkinsonism (14.1%) compared to control subjects (19.8%). The combined alleles frequency of CY P2D6*3 + apoE4 was significantly higher not only in the PD group (33.3%) bu t also in patients with parkinsonism (22.3%) compared to control subjects ( 1.6%). These results suggest that there is a substantial overlap not only i n the clinical manifestation but also in the genetic risk factors between P arkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.