Polymorphisms in the interleukin-1 alpha and beta genes and the risk for Parkinson's disease

Thorsten Schulte, Ludger Schöls, Thomas Müller, Dirk Woitalla, Klaus Berger, Rejko Krüger*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

93 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Several lines of evidence indicate that immune mechanisms are involved in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders. Activated immunocompetent cells and inflammatory cytokines are present in affected brain regions in patients with Alzheimer's (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD). For AD biochemical and pathological data are supported by genetic studies identifying risk alleles for polymorphisms in regulatory regions of the interleukin-1 alpha (IL-1α-889) and interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β-511) gene, respectively. The partially overlapping pathology and inflammatory reaction pattern between AD and PD led us to investigate these polymorphisms in a large sample of 295 German PD patients and 270 healthy controls. We found T in position -511 in the IL-1β gene more frequent in patients compared to controls (χ2=4.44, P=0.034). For the IL-1α-889 polymorphism no significant difference between patients and controls was observed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)70-72
Number of pages3
JournalNeuroscience Letters
Volume326
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Jun 2002
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Genetics
  • Inflammation
  • Interleukin-1 alpha
  • Interleukin-1 beta
  • Neurodegeneration
  • Parkinson's disease

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