The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR-gamma2) Pro12Ala polymorphism is associated with higher risk for Alzheimer's disease in octogenarians.

Recent observations support the hypothesis that inflammatory processes at the brain level may contribute to the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR-gamma) is involved in such processes, so we thought it interesting to study the Pro12Ala polymorphism in exon 2 of the gene in a sample of late-onset AD patients. We found that Ala genotypes were significantly overrepresented among octogenarian patients compared to controls (p=0.034). Using logistic regression we observed that carrying the Ala allele significantly increased by nearly two-fold the risk of developing AD in subjects 80 years or older (OR=1.98; 95% CI 1.03-3.80, p=0.04). Though this difference was borderline significant after correction for multiple comparisons, our results suggest a possible involvement of the PPAR-gamma gene in susceptibility to late-onset AD in octogenarians.