1. ¹Hertie-Institute for Clinical Brain Research, Department of Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of Tuebingen, Germany
2. ²Department of Molecular Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London, UK
3. ³INSERM U289 and Department of Genetics, Cytogenetics and Embryology, AP-HP, Salpetriere Hospital, Paris, France
4. ⁴Department of Neurological Sciences, La Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
5. ⁵Department of Clinical Genetics, Erasmus MC Rotterdam, The Netherlands
6. ⁶Department of Neurological Sciences, Federico II University, Naples, Italy
7. ⁷Department of Neurology, Istanbul Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey
8. ⁸Departments of Neurology and Neuroscience, Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL 32224, USA
9. ⁹Max-Planck-Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany

Correspondence: Professor Dr T Gasser, Hertie-Institute for Clinical Brain Research, Section for Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of Tuebingen, Hoppe-Seyler Str. 3, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany. Tel: +49 7071 29 86529; Fax: +49 7071 29 4839; E-Mail: Thomas.Gasser@med.uni-tuebingen.de

¹⁰These two authors contributed equally to the work.

Received 5 July 2004; Revised 9 September 2004; Accepted 10 September 2004; Published online 3 November 2004.

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a genetically heterogeneous disease. Recently, significant linkage has been reported to a 39.5 cM region on the long arm of chromosome 2 (2q36-37; PARK11) in North American Parkinson families under an autosomal dominant model of inheritance. We have performed a replication study to confirm linkage to this region in a European population. Linkage analysis in 153 individuals from 45 European families with a strong family history of PD did not show any significant LOD score in this region. Therefore, PARK11 does not seem to play a major role for familial PD in the European population.