Genetic Models of Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic and evolving neurodegenerative disorder primarily due to the progressive loss of substantia nigra pars compacta neurons releasing dopamine. The etiology of idiopathic PD, which represents most of the cases, is still unclear but seems to be multifactorial, associating environmental and/or genetic factors. The major limitation of “classical” toxin-based animal models of PD is that they do not replicate some characterizing features of the pathology. Animal models based on gene mutations connected with PD may overcome, at least partially, this limitation. In this chapter, animal models targeting orthologs of genes linked with PD in humans will be reviewed. These models can represent excellent tools to investigate the specific role of the targeted gene—and its protein product—in PD pathophysiology.