Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and haplotype analysis in vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene in the patients with Parkinson disease and lung cancer

The epidemiologic data on smoking in association with Parkinson disease (PD) is puzzling. A lower incidence of smoking-related malignancies, especially lung cancer, has been reported by several studies in the patients with PD. In this study, we investigated polymorphic variations in the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene, which has been proposed having a pivotal role in progressive damage of nigral dopaminergic neurons, between Korean patients with 188 PD and 321 lung cancer patients. There were no significant differences in the tested single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) between patients with PD and lung cancer; however, one haplotype was significantly different in comparisons between the two diseases. These results suggest that VEGF genetic polymorphisms might help understand the low incidence of lung cancer in the patients with PD.