Parkin (ligase)

• OMIM: 602544
• UniProt: O60260

Parkin is an enzyme in mammals, marking defective proteins in dopaminergic neurons by appending a ubiquitin moiety, and transported so that they are degraded. A defect in this enzyme, caused by mutations in the PARK2 gene is responsible for hereditary Parkinson 's disease: the non-degraded proteins accumulate in the nerve cells and destroy them eventually. In many cases, the onset of the disease are asymptomatic and depends on other factors.

Parkin accumulates to work correctly with other proteins ( UBE2L3, UBE2L6 ) to a multi-enzyme complex together. It is also part of a more complex protein, and interacts with a plurality of individual proteins. Parkin is localized in the cytosol, but can be transformed by defective mitochondria.