Is there an antagonistic pleiotropic effect of a LRRK2 mutation on leprosy and Parkinson's disease?

Neurodegeneration is a shared feature of some infectious diseases, such as leprosy, and noninfectious conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD) (1). The type-1 reaction (T1R), a nerve damaging process seen in leprosy and caused by chronic Mycobacterium leprae infection (2), is a natural model for the study of the relationship between infection and neuronal loss. Fava et al. (3) have analyzed the genetic predisposition of T1R in 237 T1R-affected and 237 T1R-free leprosy patients from Vietnam. They find that Parkin mutations are shared risk factors for T1R and PD, whereas LRRK2 mutation p.R1628P is protective for T1R but a risk for PD (3⇓–5). Importantly, they find no association for leprosy per se and claim a T1R-specific … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: yaoyg{at}mail.kiz.ac.cn or zhangdengfeng{at}mail.kiz.ac.cn. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1