Funding was provided by the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association (Reading, United Kingdom) (grants 2008-5a [Giuliana Silvestri] and OR2006-02d [John R. Yates]); the United Kingdom Medical Research Council (grant G0000067 [John R. Yates]); the Estonian Ministry of Sci- ence and Education (grant SF0940026s07 [Mati Rahu]); the Research and Development Office of Northern Ireland Health Personal Social Services (grant RRG 4.5 [Giuliana Silvestri]); EVI-GENORET, an integrated project funded through the European Union Research Project (grant FP6 [Usha Chakravarthy]); the Deutsche Forschungsgemein- schaft (grants WE1259/18-1 and WE1259/19-1 [Bernhard H. Weber]); the Alcon Research Institute and the Ruth and Milton Steinbach Foundation (New York, New York) (Bernhard H. Weber); a Russo Grant from Tufts University School of Medicine (Johanna M. Seddon); the Macular De- generation Research Fund–Tufts Medical Center (Johanna M. Seddon); the Massachusetts Lions Eye Research Fund (Johanna M. Seddon); Research to Prevent Blindness USA (Michael L. Klein, Peter J. Francis); the Foundation Fight- ing Blindness (Peter J. Francis); financial support from the United Kingdom Department of Health through an award made by the National Institute for Health Research to Moor- fields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and University College London Institute of Ophthalmology for a Specialist Biomedical Research Centre for Ophthalmology (John R. Yates); the JACOM Foundation (Paul N. Baird); and a Na- tional Health and Medical Research Council (Canberra, Australia) Practitioner Award (Robyn H. Guymer). The Centre for Eye Research Australia receives operational in- frastructure support from the Victorian government (Paul N. Baird, Robyn H. Guymer), the Macular Disease Society (Gareth J. McKay, Andrew J. Lotery), the T. F. C. Frost Charity (Andrew J. Lotery), and the British Council for the Prevention of Blindness (Andrew J. Lotery). Genetic analysis in the European Eye Study was supported by an MRC Bio- marker Award (grant G0601354 [Aroon D. Hingorani, Astrid

Conflict of interest: none declared.

Ang LS, Cruz RP, Hendel A, et al. Apolipoprotein E, an im- portant player in longevity and age-related diseases. Exp Gerontol.

;

(

):

–

Lewis SJ, Brunner EJ. Methodological problems in genetic association studies of longevity—the apolipoprotein E gene as an example. Int J Epidemiol.

;

(

):

–

Souied EH, Benlian P, Amouyel P, et al. The epsilon

allele of the apolipoprotein E gene as a potential protective factor for exudative age-related macular degeneration. Am J Ophthalmol.

;

(

):

–

Swaroop A, Branham KE, Chen W, et al. Genetic suscepti- bility to age-related macular degeneration: a paradigm for dissecting complex disease traits. Hum Mol Genet.

;

(Spec No.

):R

–R

Sebastiani P, Solovieff N, Puca A, et al. Genetic signatures of exceptional longevity in humans [published online ahead of print July

,

]. Science. (DOI:

/science.

).

Yu CE, Seltman H, Peskind ER, et al. Comprehensive analysis of APOE and selected proximate markers for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease: patterns of linkage disequilibrium and disease/marker association. Genomics.

;

(

):

–

Payami H, Zhu M, Montimurro J, et al. One step closer to fixing association studies: evidence for age- and gender- specific allele frequency variations and deviations from Hardy- Weinberg expectations in controls. Hum Genet.

;

(

-

):

–

Gerdes LU. The common polymorphism of apolipoprotein E: geographical aspects and new pathophysiological relations. Clin Chem Lab Med.

;

(

):

–

Corbo RM, Scacchi R. Apolipoprotein E (APOE) allele dis- tribution in the world. Is APOE*

a ‘thrifty’ allele? Ann Hum Genet.

;

(

):

–

Singh PP, Singh M, Mastana SS. APOE distribution in world populations with new data from India and the UK. Ann Hum Biol.

;

(

):

–

related maculopathy. Hum Mol Genet.

;

(

):

–

M

ay GJ, Silvestri G, Patterson CC, et al. Further assessment of the complement component

and factor B region associated with age-related macular degeneration. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci.

;

(

):

–

Yates JR, Sepp T, Matharu BK, et al. Complement C

variant and the risk of age-related macular degeneration. N Engl J Med.

;

(

):

–

Hadley D, Orlin A, Brown G, et al. Analysis of six genetic risk factors highly associated with AMD in the region surrounding ARMS

and HTRA

on chromosome

, region q

Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci.

;

(

):

–

Ennis S, Jomary C, Mullins R, et al. Association between the SERPING

gene and age-related macular degeneration: a two-stage case-control study. Lancet.

;

(

):

–

Dandekar SS, Jenkins SA, Peto T, et al. Does smoking influ- ence the type of age related macular degeneration causing visual impairment? Br J Ophthalmol.

;

(

):

–

Augood C, Fletcher A, Bentham G, et al. Methods for a pop- ulation-based study of the prevalence of and risk factors for age-related maculopathy and macular degeneration in elderly European populations: the EUREYE study. Ophthalmic Epidemiol.

;

(

):

–

Haan MN, Klein R, Klein BE, et al. Hormone therapy and age- related macular degeneration: the Women’s Health Initiative Sight Exam Study. Arch Ophthalmol.

;

(

):

–

Smith JD. Apolipoproteins and aging: emerging mechanisms.