Assessment of ANG variants in Parkinson’s disease

Genetic risk factors are occasionally shared between different neurodegenerative diseases. Previous studies have linked ANG , a gene encoding angiogenin, to both Parkinson’s disease (PD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Functional studies suggest ANG plays a neuroprotective role in both PD and ALS by reducing cell death. We further explored the genetic association between ANG and PD by analyzing genotype data from the International Parkinson’s Disease Genomics Consortium (IPDGC) (14,671 cases and 17,667 controls) and whole genome sequencing (WGS) data from the Accelerating Medicines Partnership - Parkinson’s disease initiative (AMP-PD, https://amp-pd.org/ ) (1,647 cases and 1,050 controls). Our analysis did not replicate the findings of previous studies and found no significant association between ANG variants and PD risk.