Effect of CLU and PICALM polymorphisms on AD risk: A study from south India

Abstract Objectives To study the association of apolipoprotein E ( APOE) , Clusterin ( CLU) and phosphatidylinositol binding clathrin assembly protein (PICALM) polymorphisms in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) subjects compared to cognitively normal control subjects in an Indian population. Methods The study subjects included persons with AD (N = 243) and age group matched healthy controls (N = 164). All the AD subjects were evaluated using a standard protocol. DNA was isolated from whole blood. APOE (rs7412, rs429358), CLU (rs11136000) and PICALM (rs3851179) were genotyped. General linear model was used to test the association between the individual risk genotypes and AD. Results The presence of APOE e4 was associated with AD after adjusting for age and gender (p  CLU (p = 0.25) and rs3851179 PICALM (p = 0.54). Conclusion Our results confirmed a significant association of APOE e4 carrier status with AD. No association was observed for CLU and PICALM with AD. This might be due to a different genetic background. There are no previous reports of these polymorphisms in an Indian cohort. Future Indian AD studies should investigate additional SNPs in a larger sample size in these genes.