MUTATIONS IN THE PARKIN GENE CAUSE AUTOSOMAL RECESSIVE JUVENILE PARKINSONISM

Parkinson's disease is a common neurodegenerative disease with complex clinical features(1). Autosomal recessive juvenile parkinsonism (AR-J P)(2,3) maps to the long arm of chromosome 6 (6q25.2-q27) and is linke d strongly to the markers D6S305 and D6S253 (ref. 4); the former is de leted in one Japanese AR-JP patient(5). By positional cloning within t his microdeletion, we have now isolated a complementary DNA clone of 2 ,960 base pairs with a 1,395-base-pair open reading frame, encoding a protein of 465 amino acids with moderate similarity to ubiquitin at th e amino terminus and a RING-finger motif at the carboxy terminus, The gene spans more than 500 kilobases and has 12 exons, five of which (ex ons 3-7) are deleted in the patient, Four other AR-JP patients from th ree unrelated families have a deletion affecting exon 4 alone. A 4.5-k ilobase transcript that is expressed in many human tissues but is abun dant in the brain, including the substantia nigra, is shorter in brain tissue from one of the groups of exon-4-deleted patients. Mutations i n the newly identified gene appear to be responsible for the pathogene sis of AR-JP, and we have therefore named the protein product 'Parkin' .