The tau gene haplotype H1 confers a susceptibility to Parkinson's disease

Background: Polymorphisms in the tau gene may be associated with increased risk for idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD); however, most of previous association studies have been underpowered to detect a potentially modest contribution of the tau variants to PD risk. Objective: To clarify the relationship between genetic variation in tau gene and PD risk, we conducted a meta-analysis of all published association studies. We identified 14 independent case-control studies including 2,093 PD cases and 2,258 controls. After excluding two studies contributing to most of between-study heterogeneity, the pooled odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of PD were 1.42 ( 95% CI, 1.23 - 1.65) for those with H1/H1 genotype compared with all others and 1.52 ( 95% CI, 1.12 - 2.04) for all individuals carrying H1 haplotype versus all others. Based on the data available, the results were not significantly different according to sex, family history of PD, age at onset and dementia status. Conclusions: Our results support the notion that tau gene H1 haplotype may be an important risk factor of PD. Copyright (C) 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel.