A study of alpha-adrenoceptor gene polymorphisms and Alzheimer disease

Summary.

There exists considerable evidence implicating abnormalities of the alpha (α)-adrenergic system in the development of Alzheimer disease (AD). We propose to investigate potential correlations between the presence or otherwise of α-adrenoceptor polymorphisms and the presence of AD. We studied the polymorphisms of the α_1a- and the α_2a-adrenoceptor genes in 142 AD patients and 98 normal controls. The result demonstrated that none of the α_2a-adrenoceptor genotypes was associated with increased susceptibility to AD. However, there was a trend that the frequency of the C allele of the α_1a-adrenoceptor was elevated and an excess of the CC genotype (90.1%) was found in the subjects with AD in comparison with the controls (78.6%). This association was unrelated to the apolipoprotein E genotypes. The hypothesis that the α_1a-adrenoceptor gene may be implicated in the pathogenesis of AD may deserve further study.