Parkinson's Disease affects over 1.1 million people in the United States. It is a heterogeneous neurological disorder with variable clinical presentation and symptoms that overlap with etiologically distinct movement disorders. Pathologically, it is defined by substantia nigra degeneration, dopaminergic neuronal loss, and frequently, but not always, the presence of Lewy bodies. These diagnostic complexities make identifying causative genes challenging. Highly penetrant genes have been discovered through Mendelian inheritance studies, while common polygenic risk genes are often identified via large-scale GWAS, each capturing distinct aspects of disease biology. No single approach fully characterizes the genetics underlying Parkinson's Disease.

To address this, BioGRID curators integrated multiple evidence sources to construct a comprehensive Parkinson's gene list, including MDSgene, DisGeNET, OMIM, major GWAS meta-analyses such as Nalls et al., 2019 (PMID:31701892), gene-prioritization studies, and functional data from animal, cell line, and biomarker studies. Evidence for links to Lewy body formation or clearance was also considered. Historically proposed genes were excluded when a clear consensus showed failure to replicate early findings (ex. PMID: 33239198). This ensures the list reflects the most reproducible and reliable evidence currently available.

The Parkinson's Disease curation project is on-going and will be updated each month. If you notice errors or missing interactions/publications in this dataset, or otherwise wish to contribute to this project, please contact us at support@thebiogrid.org. All Parkinson's related data are freely available for download from links within this project.