Genetic analysis of SIRT1 gene promoter in sporadic Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases. To date, genetic causes and underlying molecular mechanisms for sporadic PD remain largely unknown. Sirtuis are highly conserved NAD-dependent class III deacetylases. SIRT1, the closest to yeast Sir2, has deacetylase activity and ADP-ribosyltransferase activity. SIRT1 gene has been connected to many cellular processes and implicated in human diseases, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Studies in animal model have also associated SIRT1 with aggregation of alpha-synuclein, a critical protein in the PD pathogenesis. We hypothesized that the genetic variants within the regulatory regions of SIRT1 gene that repress its gene expression, rather than mutations in its coding region that abolish SIRT1 function, may contribute to PD as a risk factor. In this study, we genetically analyzed the promoter region of SIRT1 gene in sporadic PD patients and ethic-matched healthy controls. Three novel heterozygous sequence variants, g.69644133C>G, g.69644213G>A and g.69644351G>A, were identified in PD patients, but in none of controls, which may alter the transcriptional activities of SIRT1 gene promoter, resulting in reduced SIRT1 levels. One novel heterozygous variant, g.69644219G>A, linked with single-nucleotide polymorphism - g.69644217A>C (rs932658), was only found in one control, which may have no functional activity. Therefore, our results suggested that genetic variants within the SIRT1 gene promoter may repress SIRT1 gene expression, contributing to PD as a risk factor.