The Role of Autophagy Associated With Causative Genes for Parkinson's Disease

ABSTRACT

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative motor disorder, affecting approximately 1% of the population aged > or =60 years. Recent investigations have shown that in addition to motor symptoms such as bradykinesia, resting tremor, and gait instability, PD also causes non-motor symptoms such as insomnia, constipation, depression, and dementia. Most PD cases occurred sporadically, but 5-10% is inherited as familial PD, and several PD-causative genes have been identified and intensively studied. Autophagy is a self-degrading mechanism of balancing the energy source in response to nutrient shortage and various stresses, and is a tightly regulated and complicated process that generates double-membrane organelles. Autophagy failure has recently been observed in both animal PD models and human PD patients. The intention of this review is to introduce recent findings regarding the relationship between causative genetic mutations in PD and autophagy, from a clinical perspective.