Parkinson's in the community

This article, which comes from a large UK study of Parkinson's Disease (PRoBaND), is an important snapshot of the impact of Parkinson's across the country today. The authors focus particularly on the most common genetic risk factor for Parkinson's - the GBA mutation. This mutation is of particular interest as it is associated with a rarer syndrome - Gaucher's Disease. In this disease, which is a lysosomal storage disorder, lipids accumulate in cells and there is disruption of the normal lysosomal function which is to digest and dispose of unwanted materials. The implication from this association is that a similar process may be involved in Parkinson's Disease.

However, most people with Parkinson's do not have this mutation. Here, over 2000 patients were recruited from across the country and of these, 1893 patients underwent genetic testing. In total a minority, 142 of these patients had mutations in the GBA gene. Of these, the majority, around 2/3 had mutations not linked with Gaucher's Disease, while the other 1/3 has mutations exactly the same as those seen in Gaucher’s disease. There were differences between carriers of these two different types of mutation, with those who had the Gaucher's Disease mutations more likely to have a severe form of the disease - younger at onset, with faster progression and higher medication requirements. While previous studies have reported more cognitive impairment in GBA carriers, this was not bourne out by this study.

We still have a long way to go in connecting the dots in genetics - a number of patients had mutations whose significance is unknown and only 10% of patients had any mutations in this gene. It may be that GBA-related Parkinson's represents a slightly different disease which may have different underlying pathology and treatment options from other forms. However, the connection between lysosomal storage disorders and Parkinson's is increasingly strong and the hope is that these connections will allow us to unlock mechanisms and develop specific treatments.

http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/early/2018/01/28/jnnp-2017-317348

J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2018 Jan 29. pii: jnnp-2017-317348. doi: 10.1136/jnnp-2017-317348.

Features of GBA-associated Parkinson's disease at presentation in the UK Tracking Parkinson's study.

Malek N, Weil RS, Bresner C, Lawton MA, Grosset KA, Tan M, Bajaj N, Barker RA, Burn DJ, Foltynie T, Hardy J, Wood NW, Ben-Shlomo Y, Williams NW, Grosset DG, Morris HR; PRoBaND clinical consortium.

OBJECTIVES:

To examine the influence of the glucocerebrosidase (GBA) mutation carrier state on age at onset of Parkinson's disease (PD), the motor phenotype and cognitive function at baseline assessment in a large cohort of UK patients. We also analysed the prevalence of mood and behavioural problems that may confound the assessment of cognitive function.

METHODS:

We prospectively recruited patients with PD in the Tracking Parkinson's study. We fully sequenced the GBA gene in all recently diagnosed patients (≤3.5 years). We examined cognitive (Montreal Cognitive Assessment) and motor (Movement Disorder Society Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale part 3) function at a baseline assessment, at an average of 1.3 years after diagnosis. We used logistic regression to determine predictors of PD with mild cognitive impairment and PD with dementia.

RESULTS:

We studied 1893 patients with PD: 48 (2.5%) were heterozygous carriers for known Gaucher's disease (GD) causing pathogenic mutations; 117 (6.2%) had non-synonymous variants, previously associated with PD, and 28 (1.5%) patients carried variants of unknown significance in the GBA gene. L444P was the most common pathogenic GBA mutation. Patients with pathogenic GBA mutations were on average 5 years younger at disease onset compared with non-carriers (P=0.02). PD patients with GD-causing mutations did not have an increased family risk of PD. Patients with GBA mutations were more likely to present with the postural instability gait difficulty phenotype compared with non-carriers (P=0.02). Patients carrying pathogenic mutations in GBA had more advanced Hoehn and Yahr stage after adjustment for age and disease duration compared with non-carriers (P=0.005). There were no differences in cognitive function between GBA mutation carriers and non-carriers at this early disease stage.

CONCLUSIONS:

Our study confirms the influence of GBA mutations on the age of onset, disease severity and motor phenotype in patients with PD. Cognition did not differ between GBA mutation carriers and non-carriers at baseline, implying that cognitive impairment/dementia, reported in other studies at a later disease stage, is not present in recently diagnosed cases. This offers an important window of opportunity for potential disease-modifying therapy that may protect against the development of dementia in GBA-PD.