Association Between the APOEɛ2/ɛ4 Genotype and Alzheimer’s Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment Among African Americans

Article type: Short Communication

Authors: Ren, Dianxu^{a; b; *} | Lopez, Oscar L.^{c; d} | Lingler, Jennifer H.^{a; d} | Conley, Yvette^{a; e}

Affiliations: [a] University of Pittsburgh, School of Nursing, Pittsburgh, PA, USA | [b] University of Pittsburgh, Department of Biostatistics, Pittsburgh, PA, USA | [c] University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine, Department of Neurology, Pittsburgh, PA, USA | [d] University of Pittsburgh, Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Pittsburgh, PA, USA | [e] University of Pittsburgh, Department of Human Genetics, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Correspondence: [*] Correspondence to: Dianxu Ren, PhD, Associate Professor, Associate Director for Statistical Support Services, University of Pittsburgh, School of Nursing, 3500 Victoria Street, 360 Victoria Building, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA. Tel.: +412 383 5240; Fax: +1412 624 1201; E-mail: dir8@pitt.edu.

Abstract: We examined the association between APOE ɛ2/ɛ4 with incident Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) among African Americans using the national dataset from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC) from 2005 to September 2019. Compared to ɛ3/ɛ3 carriers, ɛ2/ɛ4 carriers exhibited a similar risk of incident AD (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] = 0.85, 95% CI [0.39, 1.84]) among the AD cohort and similar risk of incident MCI (aHR = 0.88, 95% CI [0.51, 1.50]) among the MCI cohort. Our findings suggest that, unlike the increased risk of AD and MCI in non-Latino whites, APOE ɛ2/ɛ4 genotype is not associated with the incidence of AD and MCI among African Americans.

Keywords: African American, Alzheimer’s disease, APOE , ɛ2/ɛ4 genotype, mild cognitive impairment

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-201613

Journal: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 81, no. 3, pp. 943-948, 2021