APAF1 and Parkinson disease: Bialecka et al. (2007) showed that three SNPs in CARD15 (R702W, G908R, and L1007fsinsC) were significantly related to PD patients in a Polish population. Our group identified P268S, an additional CARD15 SNP that might be a risk factor for PD in a Chinese population (Ma et al., 2013). Additionally, Crane et al. (2002) reported that P268S was related to susceptibility of ankylosing spondylitis. Proell et al. (2008) performed sequence comparisons and found that CARD15 shared a high degree of similarity with apoptotic protease activating factor 1 (Apaf-1).