Autosomal-recessive juvenile parkinsonism in a Jewish Yemenite kindred: Mutation of Parkin gene

We report a Jewish family of Yemenite origin in which three brothers born f rom a consanguineous marriage had juvenile parkinsonism. The DNA samples fr om three affected brothers and one healthy brother were analyzed for the li nkage to markers covering the autosomal-recessive juvenile parkinsonism (AR -JP) locus. A perfect homozygous cosegregation to the markers was found, gi ving a maximal lod score of 3.11 at D6S1579, D6S305, and D6S411, all of whi ch are 0 cm apart from each other (nonparametric linkage score, 8.041; p = 0.000977). Exon 3 of the Parkin gene was homozygously deleted in all patien ts. The AR-JP gene also exists in the Jewish population.