Exon dosage analysis of parkin gene in Chinese sporadic Parkinson's disease

- Established a MLPA assay for quick detection of parkin exon rearrangements.
- Provides the first description of Chinese mainland patients with sporadic PD.
- Parkin exon dosage mutations may be a main reason for sporadic PD, especially in EOP.

Parkin gene mutations are by far the most common mutations in both familial Parkinson's disease (PD) and sporadic PD. Approximately, 50% of parkin mutations is exon dosage mutations (i.e., deletions and duplications of entire exons). Here, we first established a MLPA assay for quick detection of parkin exon rearrangements. Then, we studied parkin exon dosage mutations in 755 Chinese sporadic PDdisease patients using the established MLPA assay. We found that there were 25 (3.3%) patients with exon dosage alterations including deletions and duplications, 20 (11.4%) patients with exon rearrangements in 178 early-onset patients, and 5 (0.86%) patients with exon rearrangement mutations in 579 later-onset patients. The percentage of individuals with parkin dosage mutations is more than 33% when the age at onset is less than 30 years old, but less than 7% when the age at onset is more than 30. In these mutations, deletion is the main mutational style, especially in exon 2-5. Our results indicated that exon dosage mutations in parkin gene might be the main cause for sporadic PD, especially in EOP.