title: Parkinson's disease: leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 and autophagy, intimate enemies.
abstract: Parkinson's disease is the second common neurodegenerative disorder, after Alzheimer's disease. It is a clinical syndrome characterized by loss of dopamine-generating cells in the substancia nigra, a region of the midbrain. The etiology of Parkinson's disease has long been through to involve both genetic and environmental factors. Mutations in the leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 gene cause late-onset Parkinson's disease with a clinical appearance indistinguishable from Parkinson's disease idiopathic. Autophagy is an intracellular catabolic mechanism whereby a cell recycles or degrades damage proteins and cytoplasmic organelles. This degradative process has been associated with cellular dysfunction in neurodegenerative processes including Parkinson's disease. We discuss the role of leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 in autophagy, and how the deregulations of this degradative mechanism in cells can be implicated in the Parkinson's disease etiology.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red sobre Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas (CIBERNED), Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular y Genética, E. Enfermería y T.O., Universidad de Extremadura, 10003 Cáceres, Spain.
authors.forename: José M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Bravo-San Pedro
authors.forename: Rubén
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gómez-Sánchez
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pizarro-Estrella
authors.forename: Mireia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Niso-Santano
authors.forename: Rosa A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: González-Polo
authors.forename: José M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Fuentes Rodríguez