Elsevier

The Lancet

Volume 342, Issue 8873, 18 September 1993, Pages 697-699
The Lancet

Articles
Apolipoprotein E polymorphism and Alzheimer's disease

https://doi.org/10.1016/0140-6736(93)91705-QGet rights and content

Abstract

Summary

Apolipoprotein E (apoE) is associated with Alzheimer's neurofibrillary tangles and β-amyloid protein in senile plaques. It also appears to play an important part in the redistribution of lipids that follows deafferentation and neurodegeneration in the brain. The gene for apoE is on chromosome 19, within the genomic region previously associated with late-onset familial Alzheimer's disease (AD).

We have studied apoE phenotype expression and the corresponding allele frequencies (∈2, ∈3, ∈4) in 91 patients with sporadic AD and 74 controls. There was a significant association between ∈4 and sporadic AD (∈4 frequency 0 380 in AD and 0·122 in controls, p < 0·01). Analysis of ∈4 allele frequency as a function of age revealed a bimodal distribution, with peaks at 65 and 75 years. In bearers of ∈4 in whom AD develops this tended to happen earlier in life than in those with ∈3 or ∈2. The ∈4/AD association was more pronounced in women. Octogenarians with AD had an ∈4 allele frequency that was 3 times higher than one reported, in a different study, in healthy octogenarians.

ApoE may be an important susceptibility factor in the aetiopathology of sporadic AD.

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