Given recent reports of Kv2.1 dysregulation in neurological disorders, it is possible that alterations in the functional interaction between DAT and Kv2.1 affect dopamine neuron activity.
The coding region of the DAT gene, SLC6A3, is well conserved, but non-coding regions are more variable, most notably a variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) polymorphism in the 3' untranslated region, which has been studied in a number of dopamine-related neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease (PD).