Patients with early stage markers of Parkinson`s present epigenetic changes

Parkinson`s is a neurodegenerative disorder in which both environmental and genetic factors play significant roles. This disease is associated with epigenetic changes (the molecular changes that alter the behavior of genes without changing the sequence of DNA). Diagnosing this disease is not easy at all and this is the reason why scientists are trying to identify its early symptoms that allow treatment, so it could be possible to prevent major neurological damage. An article published in Epigenetics proves that those epigenetic changes appear to be great candidates as early stage biomarkers for Parkinson Disease. Researchers from UCSD have now shown that a distinctive pattern of epigenetic modifications (in this case called DNA methylation) is observed in specific genes associated with the disease. Even more interesting, these changes could be easily analyzed in blood samples from patients, which appear to replicate the "epigenetic status" of brain tissue cells, potentially simplifying early diagnosis of the disease.