Asian-Specific Parkinson’s Disease-Linked Genetic Risk Variants and Systemic Clinical Outcomes in Singaporeans Healthspan
Main Applicant – Prof Tan Eng King, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Department of Neurology, National Neuroscience Institute (NNI)

Parkinson’s disease (PD), a common neurodegenerative condition, has a prevalence of 0.3% in Singaporeans aged >50 years old. 5–10% of PD cases are hereditary and are caused by autosomal dominant (LRRK2, SNCA, VPS35) or autosomal recessive (PRKN, PINK1, DJ1) mutations. Asians make up a significant fraction of PD patients globally. Current studies of Asian LRRK2 risk variant carriers are limited, as they are based on small sample sizes and were performed in those already diagnosed with PD. Currently, no such studies have been conducted among carriers of Asian specific coding variants.

Furthermore, there has been no comprehensive nationwide exploration of the prevalence of LRRK2 risk variant carriers in healthy controls and the impact of LRRK2 variants on other disease conditions in Singapore. In this proposal, our overall objective is to analyse the genetic information and clinical records of the individuals to determine if those at risk or with prodromal PD can be further stratified for intervention or monitoring of subclinical disease, and also to better understand the impact of PD risk gene variants on the different systems and organs.