Apolipoprotein Eepsilon4 allele, a risk factor for late onset nonfamilial Alzheimer's disease among Israeli Jews.

Apolipoprotein (apoE) genotypes were determined in 90 Israeli Jews with late onset sporadic Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and in 90 age- and sex-matched non-demented controls. The percentage of subjects carrying at least one apoEepsilon4 allele was 6% among the controls, and 42% among the patients (P<0.001), indicating a strong association between late onset sporadic AD and the apoEepsilon4 allele. However, no association was found between the apoEepsilon4 allele in demented and non-demented Jewish Israeli patients with Down's syndrome or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). The data presented in this paper confirmed several recent reports, suggesting that the apoEepsilon4 allele is a risk factor for the development of AD but not for the development of CJD or Down's syndrome among Israeli Jews.