Parkinson's linked to manganese poisoning

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. researcher suggests there is a genetic link between Parkinson's disease and manganese poisoning.

The study, published in Nature Genetics, ties Parkinson's disease to a protein in the brain -- alpha synuclien -- misfolding and forming clumps on the basis of how the protein behaves in the type of yeast used in baking and brewing.

The similarity was discovered by Aaron Gitler -- studying yeast while at England's Whitehead Institute in Cambridge -- after reading about a type of Parkinson's disease caused by mutations in the PARK9 gene.

Gitler found a gene similar to PARK9 in yeast -- YPK9 -- that rescued alpha-synuclein toxicity in yeast.

"That was the big Eureka! and completely unexpected. It suggested that Parkinson's disease genes could interact with each other in previously unexpected ways," Gitler says in a statement.

Gitler and his research team at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, working with researchers at Purdue University and The University of Alabama, found YPK9-deficient yeast hypersensitive to manganese.

"It's an interesting story that we've discovered in yeast and it will be important to see if it holds up in people," Gitler says. "What's new is the connection between genetic and environmental causes of Parkinson's."