Genetic polymorphisms of superoxide dismutase in Parkinson's disease

Oxidative stress reactions may contribute to the pathogenesis of Parkinson' s disease (PD). The superoxide dismutases potentially play significant role s in PD by detoxifying superoxide radical. We developed genomic DNA and cDN A-based sequencing assays to identify genetic variants in the copper/zinc s uperoxide dismutase (SOD1) and manganese superoxide dismutase (SOD2) genes. No genetic variants were detected in the gene encoding SOD 1 in DNA from 4 5 idiopathic PD cases and 49 controls from a population-based case-control study. However, we identified a previously described polymorphism of the mi tochondrial targeting sequence consisting of a C47T in exon 2 of SOD2, whic h results in an alanine to valine substitution. We analyzed this SOD2 varia nt in DNA from 155 cases and 231 controls from the same study, using an all ele-specific fluorogenic 5 ' nuclease assay, and found no differences in th e distributions of allelic frequencies. These results indicate that SOD gen e variants do not contribute to PD pathogenesis. (C) 2001 Movement Disorder Society.