A LRRK-ing link

In a pair of studies, researchers from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai identified links between Parkinson’s disease and inflammatory bowel disease that could spur the development of existing therapies for new indications.

In the first paper, published in Science Translational Medicine in January, researchers conducted an unbiased screen of 1,477 exomes from Ashkenazi Jewish patients with Crohn’s disease, and 2,614 exomes from healthy controls. The researchers found that leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) variant N2081D, which is known to be a genetic cause of PD, was associated with increased risk of Crohn’s, while LRRK2 variant N551K, which has been associated with reduced risk of PD, was associated with decreased risk of Crohn’s. ...