Mechanism of Positive Association Between Parkinson’s Disease and Melanoma Revealed in New Research
Source: Doc Wire News, April 2025
There is a positive association between melanoma and Parkinson’s disease (PD), with the risk for melanoma ranging between 1.4- and 20-fold among individuals with PD. The risk is bidirectional, too, because there is also a 1.7- to 4.2-fold increased risk for PD in patients with melanoma. The link between PD and melanoma is not well understood, but increased expression of the PD-associated protein alpha-synuclein (?Syn) in melanoma cells may provide insight into the positive association between the two diseases.
Researchers tested the function of ?Syn within melanoma cell nuclei to better understand the link between neurodegeneration and cancer. The results were published in Science Advances.
The researchers tested the spatial pattern of ?Syn within primary cutaneous melanoma cells (n=4) and brain metastatic melanoma (n=17). Four out of 4 and 15 out of 17 cells demonstrated ?Syn staining; immunofluorescence staining revealed a clear enrichment of ?Syn near the large replication protein A2 (RPA32) foci, which resemble nucleolar structures involved in ribosomal DNA (rDNA) double-strand break (DSB) repair.