Alzheimer's disease and cardiovascular diseases
An international team of researchers led by Professor Anders M. Dale from the University of California at San Diego demonstrated the presence of a partial coincidence between the genetic variants associated with Alzheimer's disease and two significant risk factors for the development of diseases of the cardiovascular system: high levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and lipids involved in inflammatory reactions in the blood.
In their work, the authors used data collected in the framework of genomic association studies conducted with the participation of more than 200,000 people. Using statistical analysis, they searched for suspected areas of overlap between single nucleotide polymorphisms, or so–called snips (from the English SNP - single nucleotide polymorphism) associated with clinically diagnosed Alzheimer's disease and high levels of C-reactive protein, as well as three components of total cholesterol: high-density lipoproteins (HDL), low-density lipoproteins density (LDL) and triglycerides (TG).
As a result, 55 loci – specific regions of the gene or DNA sequence of the chromosome associated with an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease were identified. Further study of these genetic variants in the genomes of almost 145,000 healthy volunteers and patients with Alzheimer's disease who participated in four independent studies revealed two significant genetic variants on chromosomes 4 and 10. Two genes identified as a result of this – HS3ST1 and ECHDC3 – were not previously considered associated with an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
According to the authors, experts have long known that a pronounced inflammatory status and high cholesterol levels in the blood are associated with an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. This work has demonstrated that this relationship is partly explained by specific genetic variants. Now scientists will have to characterize the functions performed by the identified alleles and find out whether they can be used to optimize clinical studies devoted to the study of the possibility of using anti-inflammatory therapy for the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
Article by R. S. Desikan et al. The Polygenic Overlap Between C-Reactive Protein, Plasma Lipids and Alzheimer's Disease is published in the journal Circulation.
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of the University of California, San Diego Health Sciences:
Genetics Overlap Found Between Alzheimer’s Disease and Cardiovascular Risk Factors.
20.04.2015