Alzheimer's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Alzheimer's Disease, including details on diagnosis, memory loss, heredity, treatment, medication.

Genetic association of low density lipoprotein receptor and Alzheimer's disease.

Gopalraj RK, Zhu H, Kelly JF, Mendiondo M, Pulliam JF, Bennett DA, Estus S

Department of Physiology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40536-0230, USA.

The low density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) is an attractive candidate gene for genetic association with Alzheimer's disease (AD) because: (i) the LDLR is an apolipoprotein E (apoE) receptor, alleles of which have been associated with AD, (ii) LDLR resides at chromosome 19p13.3 within a region linked to AD, and (iii) LDLR modulates the homeostasis of cholesterol, which itself appears associated with AD. Therefore, we evaluated whether LDLR haplotypes alter the odds of AD by performing an association study examining three LDLR single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 118 AD patients and 133 non-AD subjects. LDLR genotypes were obtained by TaqMan allelic discrimination assays. Although individual LDLR SNPs were not associated with AD, analyses of unambiguous haplotypes suggested the hypothesis that the 211 LDLR haplotype was associated with reduced odds of AD. We then evaluated this hypothesis in a second study cohort, i.e., the Religious Orders Study. These results supported the hypothesis that the 211 LDLR haplotype is associated with reduced odds of AD. Moreover, these data suggested further associations between LDLR variants and AD. Thus, LDLR variants appear significantly associated with AD and merit additional study.

Published 8 December 2004 in Neurobiol Aging, 26(1): 1-7.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Alzheimer's Disease Research Today. All Rights Reserved.