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BackgroundEpidemiological studies that examined the association between Parkinson's disease (PD) and cancers led to inconsistent results, but they face a number of methodological difficulties.ObjectiveWe used results from genome-wide association studies (GWASs) to study the genetic correlation between PD and different cancers to identify common genetic risk factors.MethodsWe used individual data for participants of European ancestry from the Courage-PD (Comprehensive Unbiased Risk Factor Assessment for Genetics and Environment in Parkinson's Disease; PD, N = 16,519) and EPITHYR (differentiated thyroid cancer, N = 3527) consortia and summary statistics of GWASs from iPDGC (International Parkinson Disease Genomics Consortium; PD, N = 482,730), Melanoma Meta-Analysis Consortium (MMAC), Breast Cancer Association Consortium (breast cancer), the Prostate Cancer Association Group to Investigate Cancer Associated Alterations in the Genome (prostate cancer), International Lung Cancer Consortium (lung cancer), and Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium (ovarian cancer) (N comprised between 36,017 and 228,951 for cancer GWASs). We estimated the genetic correlation between PD and cancers using linkage disequilibrium score regression. We studied the association between PD and polymorphisms associated with cancers, and vice versa, using cross-phenotypes polygenic risk score (PRS) analyses.ResultsWe confirmed a previously reported positive genetic correlation of PD with melanoma (Gcorr = 0.16 [0.04; 0.28]) and reported an additional significant positive correlation of PD with prostate cancer (Gcorr = 0.11 [0.03; 0.19]). There was a significant inverse association between the PRS for ovarian cancer and PD (odds ratio [OR] = 0.89 [0.84; 0.94]). Conversely, the PRS of PD was positively associated with breast cancer (OR = 1.08 [1.06; 1.10]) and inversely associated with ovarian cancer (OR = 0.95 [0.91; 0.99]). The association between PD and ovarian cancer was mostly driven by rs183211 located in an intron of the NSF gene (17q21.31).ConclusionsWe show evidence in favor of a contribution of pleiotropic genes to the association between PD and specific cancers. © 2023 The Authors. Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society. This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.

OBJECTIVE: The outer mitochondrial membrane protein Miro1 is a crucial player in mitochondrial dynamics and calcium homeostasis. Recent evidence indicated that Miro1 mediates calcium-induced mitochondrial shape transition (MiST), which is a prerequisite for the initiation of mitophagy. Moreover, altered Miro1 protein levels have emerged as a shared feature of monogenic and sporadic Parkinson's disease (PD), but, so far, no disease-associated variants in RHOT1 have been identified. RESULTS: Here, for the first time, we describe heterozygous RHOT1 mutations in two PD patients (het c.815G>A; het c.1348C>T) and identified mitochondrial phenotypes with reduced mitochondrial mass in patient-derived cellular models. Both mutations lead to decreased ER-mitochondrial contact sites and calcium dyshomeostasis. As a consequence, energy metabolism was impaired, which in turn lead to increased mitophagy. CONCLUSION: In summary, our data support the role of Miro1 in maintaining calcium homeostasis and mitochondrial quality control in PD.