Of primary interest in the current study is the fact that the frequency of the apoAIV 360 mutation was relatively ele- vated in the elderly population, independently of the clinical state (e.g. in either an AD population or the control group compared with younger individuals). This mutation was also frequent in 26 patients with vascular dementia (9.26%, not shown). These finding suggest that this muta- tion may be linked more to healthy aging or ‘longevity’ than to a specific aging-disease. It is clear that apoAIV (360:Gln:His) allele frequencies are different between Eur- opean countries with a gradient increasing from north (4.9%) to south (10.5%) [5]. However, these data were col- lected from younger populations and did not address elderly populations. The relevance of the potential implication of the apoAIV (360:Gln:His) allele in aging is beyond the scope of this study. This question can be addressed better in a population which includes older subjects.

The frequency of apoAIV alleles was not significantly different between AD and the elderly control group (Table 1). However, in both groups, apoAIV (360:His) allele fre- quency was higher than in the general population with a – – mean age of 39.00 9.69 years, compared with 70.68 – 6.52 years for elderly and 77.87 8.47 years for AD , , patients (P 0.05 and P 0.001, respectively). These results suggest that this mutation is over-represented at an advanced age and is not linked to AD risk.

Next the results were analyzed with respect to apoE poly- morphism and the presence or absence of the e4-allele: the major genetic risk factor of AD (Table 2). Irrespective of the presence or the absence this allele, individuals have the same apoAIV allelic distribution and there is no significant additional risk for AD for the apoAIV (360:Gln:His) allele carriers. In the AD group, the mini-mental score [7] was not influenced by apoAIV 360 polymorphism (not shown).

Table 2

ApoAIV 360 allelic distribution according to e4-allele presence between AD and elderly control group

With 1 or 2 e4-allele Without e4-allele Subjects AD patients controls AD patients controls Without AIV-2-allele 48 20 48 63 With 1 or 2 AIV-2-allele 10 6 12 21 Odds ratio (confidence interval) 0.69 (0.22–2.15) 0.75 (0.50–1.13)

Subjects



a structural change [24] that may lead it to be more hydro- phobic, more efficient in LCAT activation and better linked to lipoproteins. All these functions, with others to be deter- mined, may protect from cardio and cerebrovascular dis- eases. Our results suggest that apoAIV(360:His) could modulate aging-associated functions and needs to be inves- tigated in longevity studies.

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