Systematic review of electron transfer study in DNA relevant to Parkinson's disease and scanning tunneling microscopy

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the most typical neurological disorder associated with aging in humans. Since PD has much to do with the medical field, most research studies focus on the biological, chemical, and medical aspects of the investigations, in addition to epidemiological studies, drug intervention studies, and much more. The lack of studies using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to investigate the electron transfer properties of DNA in PD opens up a new opportunity to look at electron transfer, which is fundamental to understanding the biological processes of the damage-repair mechanism of DNA in this disease, from a physical perspective. Hence, this systematic review was conducted to identify the methods or techniques currently used in the medical-related fields to study electron transfer in PD. related to electron transfer and PD.

Scopus, ScienceDirect, and EBSCOhost MEDLINE databases were used to search for literature related to electron transfer and PD.

From the thirty studies identified, PD appears to be caused by various causes, including increased levels of cytochrome c, reactive oxygen species produced by the mitochondria, dysfunction of complex I that interferes with the electron transfer process, and mitochondrial dysfunction triggered by PINK1 mutation. 6.7% of prior research has focused on utilizing DNA as a specific sample for investigating electron transfer in synthetic DNA through the use of STM. This highlights a notable lack of research into the potential of DNA in PD, despite the theoretical advantages that STM offers.

We propose using STM as a new technique to study electron transfer in the DNA of PD from the physics perspective.