POLG1 polyglutamine tract variants associated with Parkinson's disease

A possible role of allelic variation of the mitochondrial DNA polymerase gamma (POLG I) gene in Parkinson's disease (PD) has been suggested. First, POLG I missense mutations have been found in patients with familial parkinsonism and mitochondrial myopathy. Second, increased frequency of rare alleles of the POLG1 CAG-repeat (poly-Q) has been found in Finnish idiopathic apparently sporadic PD patients, but conflicting reports exist. The POLG1 poly-Q exhibits one major allele with 10 repeats (10Q, frequency >= 80%) and several less common alleles such as 11Q (frequency 6-9%), 6Q-9Q and 12Q-14Q (frequencies <4%). It is not known, whether the poly-Q variation modulates POLG1 function. Here we sequenced the poly-Q in 641 North American Caucasian PD patients and 292 controls. Caucasian literature controls were also used. Normal allele was defined either as 10/11Q or as 10Q according to the previous literature. The frequency of the non-10/11Q alleles in cases was not significantly different from the controls. Variant alleles defined as non-10Q were significantly increased in the PD patients compared to the North American controls (17.6% vs. 12.3%, p=0.004) as well as compared to the larger set of 897 controls (17.6% vs. 13.2%, p=0.0007). These results suggest that POLG1 poly-Q alleles other than the conserved 10Q allele may increase susceptibility to PD. This finding may be attributable to a beneficial function of the 10Q repeat protein or linkage disequilibrium between the 10Q allele and another variation within or close to POLG1. Other large case-control studies and analyses on functional differences of POLG1 poly-Q variants are warranted. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.