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 from a consanguineous marriage had juvenile parkinsonism. The DNA samples from three affected brothers and one healthy brother were analyzed for the linkage to markers covering the autosomal-recessive juvenile parkinsonism (AR-JP) locus. A perfect homozygous cosegregation to the markers was found, giving a maximal lod score of 3.11 at D6S1579, D6S305, and D6S411, all of which 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 patients. The AR-JP gene also exists in the Jewish population.