Chan P, Jiang X, Forno L S, Di Monte D A, Tanner C M, Langston J W
Parkinson's Institute, Sunnyvale, CA 94089, USA.
Neurology. 1998 Apr;50(4):1136-7. doi: 10.1212/wnl.50.4.1136.
A missense mutation of the alpha-synuclein gene has been associated with parkinsonism in a large Italian kindred. Recently, alpha-synuclein was also identified in Lewy bodies. Using reverse transcribed-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technique, we sequenced the entire coding region of the alpha-synuclein gene using brain tissue from 24 pathologically proven Parkinson's disease cases. No mutations were found in any of the patients, suggesting that a mutation at the coding region of the alpha-synuclein gene is unlikely to be responsible for nigrostriatal degeneration in typical sporadic Parkinson's disease.
