No association detected between very-low-density lipoprotein receptor (VLDL-R) and late-onset Alzheimer's disease in Hong Kong Chinese.

The epsilon4 allele of apolipoprotein E (ApoE) is a risk factor in late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD). As a receptor for ApoE, very-low-density lipoprotein receptor (VLDLR) might be involved in AD pathogenesis. A Japanese study [Okuizimi, K., et al., Nature Genet., 11 (1995) 207-209] has shown an increased 5 and decreased 8 CGG-repeat allele frequency in the 5' untranslated region of VLDLR in Japanese AD versus normal controls (N). Subsequent studies in Caucasian Americans failed to duplicate the result. We examined this polymorphism in pathologically- or clinically-diagnosed Chinese late-onset AD. Our data did not show a significant increase in the 5 CGG-repeat in AD, thus suggesting no association to VLDLR. However, our data did show that the allele frequencies for each CGG-repeat were similar in both Chinese and Japanese.