Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder. Genome-wide association studies have confirmed the association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located in the SNCA gene with the risk of PD. While hypomethylation of the SNCA intron-1 was observed in patients with sporadic PD, an association between SNCA SNPs and SNCA methylation levels has been identified. To investigate whether these SNPs are associated with the level of SNCA methylation in the Chinese population, we genotyped SNCA SNPs and analyzed the relationship between SNCA SNPs and SNCA DNA methylation status from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of Chinese Han PD patients. Our results revealed that the rs3756063 polymorphism could contribute to the risk of PD in the Chinese Han population and confirmed the effect of this polymorphism on SNCA DNA methylation. Further studies will be needed to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the associations between SNPs, methylation and PD pathogenesis.
Keywords: Methylation; Parkinson's disease; SNCA; Single nucleotide polymorphisms.
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