Background Previously, we detected linkage of idiopathic Parkinson disease (PD) to the
region on chromosome 6 that contains the Parkin gene (D6S305; logarithm of odds score,
5.47) in families with at least one individual with age at onset younger than 40 years
(families with early-onset disease). Further study demonstrated the presence of Parkin
mutations in this data set. However, previous case-control studies have reported conflicting
results regarding the role of more common Parkin polymorphisms as susceptibility alleles for …