Hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy type I (HMSN I) or Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease is an autosomal dominant peripheral neuropathy. In some CMT families linkage has been reported with either the Duffy blood group or the APOA2 gene, both located on chromosome 1q. More recently, linkage has been found in six CMT families with two chromosome 17p markers. We extensively analyzed a multi-generation Charcot-Marie-Tooth family by using molecular genetic techniques in order to localize the CMT gene defect. First, we constructed a continuous linkage group of 11 chromosome 1 markers and definitely excluded chromosome 1 as the site of mutation. Second, we analyzed the family for linkage with chromosome 17. The two-point lod scores obtained with D17S58 and D17S71 proved that this Charcot-Marie-Tooth family is linked to chromosome 17. Moreover, multipoint linkage results indicated that the mutation is most likely located on the chromosome 17p arm, distal of D17S71.