Parkinson Platform Noord Nederland

The number of genetic susceptibility loci for Parkinson's disease—once believed to be the archetypal non-genetic disorder—has been growing with each genome-wide association study.1 Although a total of 26 independent risk loci have been reported, mutations in leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) are the most common cause of familial Parkinson's disease, and several LRRK2 risk variants have been associated with sporadic disease.2 Importantly, disease penetrance and age of disease onset are highly variable; data from studies in LRRK2 Gly2019Ser carriers have shown penetrance measures of only 26% in the Ashkenazi Jewish population, suggesting major genetic or environmental phenotype modifiers.