Abstract
Epidemiological studies support a general inverse association between the risk of cancer development and Parkinson’s disease (PD). In recent years however, increasing amount of eclectic evidence points to a positive association between PD and cancers through different temporal analyses and ethnic groups. This positive association has been supported by several common genetic mutations in SNCA, PARK2, PARK8, ATM, p53, PTEN, and MC1R resulting in cellular changes such as mitochondrial dysfunction, aberrant protein aggregation, and cell cycle dysregulation. Here, we review the epidemiological and biological advances of the past decade in the association between PD and cancers to offer insight on the recent and sometimes contradictory findings.
Highlights
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of the most common and rigorously studied age-related neurodegenerative disorders, occurring in 0.3 % of the whole population and nearly 2 % in those over 65 years of age in industrialized countries [1]
Phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) regulates the function of PTEN induced putative kinase 1 (PINK1), located on chromosome 1p36, a region frequently deleted in human cancers and mutated in familial forms of PD [141,142,143]
Similar to another common PD causal gene PARK2, PINK1 plays a key role in mitochondrial quality control by identifying damaged mitochondrial and targeting them for degradation, important functions dysregulated in neurodegeneration and cancer [144, 145]
Summary
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of the most common and rigorously studied age-related neurodegenerative disorders, occurring in 0.3 % of the whole population and nearly 2 % in those over 65 years of age in industrialized countries [1]. While the prevalence of this slowly debilitating disease is increasing, it remains incurable and irreversible due to its elusive mechanisms. Many epidemiological studies have reported associations between PD and cancers, supporting a general inverse and more recently, positive association in certain cancers including skin, breast, and brain This positive association is corroborated by advances in molecular genetics and cell biology revealing several genetic mutations that alter cell cycle control, protein turnover, and mitochondrial functions. This intriguing association between PD and cancers provides a new perspective to the well-known opposing cell fates of degeneration and death of post-mitotic neurons, and the uncontrolled division and enhanced resistance to death of
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