Are rare heterozygous SYNJ1 variants associated with Parkinson’s disease?

Abstract

Previous studies have established that rare biallelic SYNJ1 mutations cause autosomal recessive parkinsonism and Parkinson’s disease (PD). We analyzed 8165 PD cases, 818 early-onset-PD (EOPD, < 50 years) and 70,363 controls. Burden meta-analysis revealed an association between rare nonsynonymous variants and variants with high Combined Annotation-Dependent Depletion score (> 20) in the Sac1 SYNJ1 domain and PD (Pfdr = 0.040). A meta-analysis of EOPD patients demonstrated an association between all rare heterozygous SYNJ1 variants and PD (Pfdr = 0.029).