Genetic analysis of FGF20 in Chinese patients with Parkinson's disease

Sequence variants in fibroblast growth factor 20 (FGF20) have been reported to be associated with Parkinson's disease (PD). We genotyped the rs591323 variant in a total of 2220 Han Chinese subjects, including 1051 patients with sporadic PD and 1169 controls, to investigate the association between rs591323 and the risk of PD. In addition, we also conducted a stratified analysis according to age at onset of PD and compared the clinical characteristics of AA + AG subjects with GG subjects. In this study, we confirmed that the A allele of rs591323 in FGF20 reduces the risk of developing sporadic PD (P = 0.013). Additionally, subjects with the AA + AG genotype have a reduced risk compared to individuals with the GG genotype (P = 0.024). This association was significant among females (P = 0.036), but was not significant among males (P = 0.266). Furthermore, no significant association was observed among either the early-onset PD group (P = 0.051) or the late-onset PD group (P = 0.187). Moreover, we demonstrated that the AA + AG subjects could not be distinguished from the GG subjects based on their clinical features. Our study is the first to demonstrate that FGF20 (rs591323) is associated with a lower risk of PD in a Southern Han Chinese population from mainland China.