A TINY, gene-regulating snippet of RNA may play a role in Parkinson’s disease. Bingwei Lu, a neuroscientist at Stanford University in California, has shown that a microRNA sequence which suppresses certain genes is linked to the death of brain cells in fruit flies.
Lu and his team studied a gene called LRRK2. A mutant form of LRRK2, common in Jews of European descent and people from north Africa, is known to be involved in the development of Parkinson’s, but exactly how was unclear.
Fruit flies with the mutant form of LRRK2 also had a disrupted microRNA pathway associated…
