New Gene Linked to Alzheimer's

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The researchers pointed out that three other genetic variants have been previously tied to the development of early onset Alzheimer's, a relatively rare form of the illness that typically strikes between the ages of 30 and 60.

However, only one other genetic variant has been previously linked to late-onset Alzheimer's, which typically strikes people over the age of 65 and accounts for 90 percent of all cases of the disease. This other variant -- known as ApoE4, and first isolated in 1993 -- is thought to account for about 20 percent of all late-onset Alzheimer's cases. ApoE4 is believed to elevate the risk of disease by between 30 percent and 40 percent, the researchers said.

As for the SORL1 variant, the study authors said it probably accounts for fewer cases of Alzheimer's than the ApoE4 variant.

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The researchers based their SORL1 finding on a five-year genetic analysis of blood drawn from 6,000 people from around the globe. They included 500 black sibling pairs with one sibling who had Alzheimer's; 350 families in New York City, Toronto and the Dominican Republic -- totaling 1,800 people -- half of whom had the disease; and elderly residents of a northern Israeli-Arab community.

The researchers divided the entire pool into two groups -- one to establish the presence of SORL1 and the other to establish the gene's role. Describing SORL1 as a "big gene" that may contain as many as 500 variants, the researchers focused on the activities of just 29 -- leaving lots of gene turf yet to till.

None of the 29 variants so far appears to be directly related to an Alzheimer's chain of events.

But, when tallying the overall presence of both normal SORL1 and SORL1 with abnormal variants, the researchers found that in each of the racial and ethnic groups, SORL1 with variants was more common among the Alzheimer's patients than among the healthy men and women. And normal SORL1 was less common among those with the disease.

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