The parkin gene is not a major susceptibility locus for typical late-onsetParkinson's disease

We investigated the parkin gene in 118 patients with typical Parkinson's di sease (PD), i.e. in patients who had an onset of PD after the age of 45 yea rs. The study group included 95 subjects with sporadic PD and 23 subjects f rom 18 families with autosomal recessive PD. No pathogenetic mutations in t he parkin gene were detected either in familial or in sporadic patients. Ou r findings indicate that the parkin gene is not involved in the pathogenesi s of classic late-onset PD.