Association of Apolipoprotein E Alleles with Susceptibility to Age-Related Macular Degeneration in Iranian Patients

• Main Authors: Mohammad Askari, Amin Reza Nikpoor, Hajar Aryan, Hamid Ghaedi, Javad Akhtari, Asaad Azarnejad, Kazem Mousavizadeh, Mohammad Hossein Sanati, Alireza Irani, Khalil Ghasemi Falavarjani, Hossein Nazari
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences and Health Services 2015-04-01
• Series: Research in Molecular Medicine
• Subjects: age-related macular degeneration; association study; apolipoprotein E; vision
• Online Access: http://rmm.mazums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-733-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1

Background: We aimed here to investigate the association between alleles and genotypes of APOE and Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) development. Materials and Methods: After ophthalmological examination, 120 patients with confirmed AMD and 120 healthy controls were enrolled in the study. The polymorphic segment of APOE gene was PCR-amplified and sequenced to determine the frequency distribution of polymorphic alleles and genotypes of this gene in the sample population. Results: The frequency distribution of APOE alleles and genotypes differed significantly between the patients and the control groups (P<0.05). The frequency of APOE&epsilon2 in patients was higher than controls (P = 0.00) and this variant allele showed a significant association with AMD even after removal of the effects of age, sex and smoking by logestic regression analysis (P = 0.00, OR= 3.439 CI 95% 1.664-7.108). On the other hand, the frequency distribution of APOE&epsilon4 was not statistically different between patients and healthy controls. Conclusion: The results show a moderate positive association between APOE &epsilon2 and AMD, but current data does not show any role for APOE &epsilon4 in protection from AMD. However, more studies are required to reveal the possible role of APOE in the pathogenesis of AMD.