A genetic mutation that causes Parkinson’s disease has now been linked to hereditary lung cancer, researchers say.
Lung cancer is by far the leading cause of cancer deaths in both men and women. There are about 221,000 new cases diagnosed each year, and an estimated 158,000 men and women die annually from the disease. Only a small percentage of these cases are inherited, although new genetic discoveries could increase that estimate.
Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), working in collaboration with the Genetic Epidemiology of Lung Cancer Consortium, made their discovery by sequencing certain genes from individuals coming from families with multiple cases of lung cancer.
In doing so, they discovered the presence of a mutation in the PARK2 gene that is linked to early-onset Parkinson’s disease,
"While this specific mutation is very rare in the general population, there was a significant association between the PARK2 mutation we studied and the families with multiple cases of lung cancer," said Donghai Xiong, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology at MCW and the lead author of the paper.
The researchers also said the hope that their discovery could lead to the development of new targeted therapies to treat lung cancer patients with this particular genetic mutation.
The study is published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
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