ABSTRACT
Parkinson′s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder, which has a highly effective pharmacological symptomatic treatment. Levodopa is the most effective drug available for the symptomatic treatment of PD and is the gold standard with which other therapies must be compared. There are significant individual differences in clinical features, disease course, and response to pharmacological treatment in PD patients, not only attributed to disease process and environmental factors, but also genetic factors. Pharmacogenomics, also known as personalized medicine, is the study of how genetic variations in a person′s genome affect their response to drug therapies, which contribute to apply the patient with the best treatment plan, including the timing of dosing, the dose administered, and the most appropriate drugs. Pharmacogenomics accounts for 60%-90% variability in drug pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. Major determinants of the pharmacogenomic outcome include pathogenic, mechanistic, metabolic, transporter and pleiotropic genes. This article will summarize the impact of polymorphisms in genes encoding dopamine signaling pathway on drug response, and the impact of genetic polymorphisms on complications and prognosis associated with dopaminergic drug therapy.