Challenges of Parkinson's Disease GWASs in African People

The genetic architecture of Parkinson's disease ranges from familial monogenic forms caused by rare highly penetrant variants to complex sporadic forms associated with high-frequency low-penetrance variants. Most large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have been done in individuals of European ancestry, and data on common low-penetrance risk variants associated with Parkinson's disease in African people are scarce. Characterisation of ethnicity-specific genetic variants in Africa is crucial, because African populations have great genetic diversity, with more private alleles than any other population.