Susceptibility loci for pigmentation and melanoma in relation to Parkinson's disease

Growing evidence suggests that Parkinson's disease (PD) patients have a lower risk for most types of cancer except for melanoma, which has a modest positive association with PD. Pigmentation genes have been hypothesized to contribute to this association. We therefore examined whether genetic susceptibility loci for pigmentation or melanoma was associated with PD risk in 2 large independent datasets. In the Parkinson's Genes and Environment (PAGE) study, we examined 11 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) identified from previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of pigmentation or melanoma in relation to PD among 808 PD cases and 1623 controls; furthermore, we also examined the colors of hair, eye, or skin and melanoma in relation to PD. In the International Parkinson's Disease Genomic Consortium (IPDGC), we examined a broader selection of 360 pigmentation or melanoma GWAS SNPs in relation to PD among 5,333 PD cases and 12,019 controls. All participants were non-Hispanic Whites. As expected, in the PAGE study, most SNPs were associated with 1 or more pigmentation phenotypes. However, neither these SNPs nor pigmentation phenotypes were associated with PD risk after Bonferroni correction with the exception of rs4911414 at the ASIP gene (p = .001). A total of 18 PD cases (2.2%) and 26 controls (1.6%) had a diagnosis of melanoma with an odds ratio of 1.3 (95% confidence interval: 0.7-2.4). In the IPDGC analysis, none of the 360 SNPs, including rs4911414, were associated with PD risk after adjusting for multiple comparisons. In conclusion, we did not find significant associations between GWAS SNPs of pigmentation or melanoma and the risk for PD.