The new "Alzheimer's gene"
Scientists have discovered a gene that affects Alzheimer's disease
The risk of developing Alzheimer's disease in women depends on MGMT mutations, US researchers said. The press release of the Novel Gene for Alzheimer's Disease in Women Identified is published on the website of Boston University – VM.
Mutations in the genomes of patients from two groups were studied: about 10 thousand US citizens and 22 women from the community of closely related Protestant Hutterites. It turned out that two sites are associated with Alzheimer's disease, both belonging to the MGMT gene.
The mutations found in the first group were associated with an increase in the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease by 1.4 times, in the other — by two times. According to scientists, the mutations found are currently the most significant risk indicators. They stressed that both studies were conducted by different methods and pointed to the same one, which increases the confidence of researchers in the conclusions.
It is known that the MGMT gene is responsible for the restoration of DNA elements that do not contain genetic information. There is no direct connection of its functions with Alzheimer's disease. Why its influence was found only in women is also unknown.
Article by Chung et al. Genome-wide association and multi-omics studies identify MGMT as a novel risk gene for Alzheimer's disease among women published in The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association – VM.
Alzheimer's disease is responsible for 60-70% of all cases of dementia, which, according to WHO, affects 55 million people.
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