The eleventh "parkinsonism gene"
The "missing genetic link" of Parkinson's disease was found in the Mennonite family
According to EurekAlert! (Parkinson's disease gene identified with help of Mennonite family: UBC-VCH research), Matthew Farrer, professor of medical genetics from the University of British Columbia, who heads the group, told about the results of his group's work, speaking on June 27 at the 16th International Congress dedicated to Parkinsonism in Dublin.
The scientists succeeded in achieving success thanks to the participation in a study that lasted almost thirty years, since 1983, of a Mennonite family from the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, which has Dutch-German-Russian roots. Of the 57 members of this family, twelve were diagnosed with "Parkinson's disease with Levi's corpuscles and late onset." A mutated gene called DNAJC13 was isolated from their genetic material by massive parallel DNA sequencing.
Confirmation of the result was obtained after the same mutation was isolated in several other Mennonite families living in Canada. As the head of the Canadian Mennonites Bruce Guenther noted in this regard, the discovery of DNAJC13 is important for those whose family history dates back to the Mennonite colonies of the 19th century on the territory of Russia.
Mennonites one of the Protestant sects, the members of which in the late 18th century, he moved from Germany and the Netherlands to Russia. In the middle of the 19th century, there were about one hundred thousand people in Russian Mennonite communities, located mainly in the south of the country and in the Volga region. Subsequently, most of the Russian Mennonites emigrated to the USA and Canada, where they continue to live in closed communities, not recognizing the benefits of civilization.
In total, according to Farrer, DNA samples were taken from thousands of sick and healthy people during the study. He called the achievement of his team the "missing link", thanks to which it will be possible to combine all the latest scientific discoveries related to Parkinson's disease, and finally make a breakthrough in the treatment of this now incurable degenerative disease.
In addition to specialists from the Universities of British Columbia and Saskatchewan, scientists from the Vancouver Institute for Health Research, McGill University, the Mayo Clinic in Florida and the Norwegian St. Olaf Hospital participated in the work.
Parkinson's disease is the second most common chronic neurodegenerative disorder in the world, after Alzheimer's disease. According to the US National Institutes of Health, more than four million people worldwide suffer from this disease, including more than a million in North America.
Approximately 15 percent of the cases have blood relatives who also have this disease. Studies in recent years, as a result of which eleven genes associated with parkinsonism have been identified, confirm the theory about the genetic nature of this disease.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru28.06.2012