title: Genetic polymorphism of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme is not associated with the development of Parkinson's disease and of L-dopa-induced adverse effects.
abstract: Sporadic Parkinson's disease (PD) is a frequent neurodegenerative movement disorder. Both environmental and genetic factors have been studied in the etiology of PD. Among genetic factors, increasing evidences suggest that deletion/insertion (D/I) gene polymorphism of the angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) may be involved in the pathogenesis of PD and in the occurrence of the adverse effects of chronic L-dopa therapy. We investigated this hypothesis by evaluating the frequency of the ACE gene D/I polymorphism in 120 Italian PD patients and 132 controls. Out of the 120 PD patients, 91 were under chronic L-dopa treatment. Our results revealed no difference in ACE I/D genotype (chi(2)=0.79, p=0.66) and allele (chi(2)=0.34, p=0.56) frequencies between PD and controls. We also failed to observe any significant association with the occurrence of L-dopa-induced adverse effects in long-term treated PD patients, thereby excluding the presence of an association between ACE I/D genotypes and the genetic susceptibility to PD and the development of adverse effect of chronic L-dopa therapy.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale e Patologia, Università degli Studi La Sapienza, Rome, Italy. esterina.pascale@uniroma1.it
authors.forename: Esterina
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pascale
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Purcaro
authors.forename: Emanuela
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Passarelli
authors.forename: Renzo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Guglielmi
authors.forename: Anna Rita
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Vestri
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Passarelli
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Meco
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000978:Antiparkinson Agents / Q000009:adverse effects*; D005260:Female; D005787:Gene Frequency; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D007980:Levodopa / Q000009:adverse effects*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000235:genetics*; D007703:Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A / Q000235:genetics; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
chemical_list: D000978:Antiparkinson Agents; D007980:Levodopa; D007703:Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A