Abstract
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders and is caused by the loss of dopaminergic neuronal cells in the substantia nigra pars compacta. Although it is known that genetic factors contribute to the pathogenesis of PD, the molecular mechanisms underlying neuronal degeneration in PD remain unclear. Approximately 5% of PD cases have a clear familial etiology, showing classical recessive or dominant Mendelian modes of inheritance. PD-associated genes play important roles in cellular functions, such as lipid metabolism, membrane trafficking, mitochondrial functions, the ubiquitin-proteasomal system, and the autophagy-lysosomal pathway. In this review, we summarize recent progress in understanding the genetics of PD.
© 2016 The Juntendo Medical Society. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original source is properly credited.
