Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on Parkinson's disease (PD) have mostly been done in Europeans and Japanese. No study has been done in Han Chinese, which make up nearly a fifth of the world population. We conducted the first Han Chinese GWAS analysing a total of 22,729 subjects (5,125 PD cases and 17,604 controls) from Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Korea, mainland China and Taiwan. We performed imputation, merging and logistic regression analyses of 2,402,394 SNPs passing quality control filters in 779 PD cases, 13,227 controls, adjusted for the first three principal components. 90 SNPs with association P<10(-4) were validated in 9 additional sample collections and the results were combined using fixed-effects inverse-variance meta-analysis. We observed strong associations reaching genome-wide significance at SNCA, LRRK2 and MCCC1, confirming their important roles in both European and Asian PD. We also identified significant (P<0.05) associations at 5 loci (DLG2, SIPA1L2, STK39, VPS13C and RIT2), and observed the same direction of associations at 9 other loci including BST1 and PARK16. Allelic heterogeneity was observed at LRRK2 while European risk SNPs at 6 other loci including MAPT and GBA-SYT11 were non-polymorphic or very rare in our cohort. Overall, we replicate associations at SNCA, LRRK2, MCCC1 and 14 other European PD loci but did not identify Asian-specific loci with large effects (OR>1.45) on PD risk. Our results also demonstrate some differences in the genetic contribution to PD between Europeans and Asians. Further pan-ethnic meta-analysis with European GWAS cohorts may unravel new PD loci.

Citation： Foo Jia Nee, Tan Louis C., Irwan Ishak D., Au Wing-Lok, Low Hui Qi, Prakash Kumar-M., Ahmad-Annuar Azlina, Bei Jinxin, Chan Anne Y. Y., Chen Chiung Mei, Chen Yi-Chun, Chung Sun Ju, Deng Hao, Lim Shen-Yang, Mok Vincent, Pang Hao, Pei Zhong, Peng Rong, Shang Hui-Fang, Song Kyuyoung, Tan Ai Huey, Wu Yih-Ru, Aung Tin, Cheng Ching-Yu, Chew Fook Tim, Chew Soo-Hong, Chong Siow-Ann, Ebstein Richard P., Lee Jimmy, Saw Seang-Mei, Seow Adeline, Subramaniam Mythily, Tai E-Shyong, Vithana Eranga N., Wong Tien-Yin, Heng Khai Koon, Meah Wee-Yang, Khor Chiea Chuen, Liu Hong, Zhang Furen, Liu Jianjun, Tan Eng-King. Genome-wide association study of Parkinson's disease in East Asians. West China medical Virtual Journal, 2000, 1(1): 226-232-. doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddw379 Copy