A severe loss of choline acetyltransferase in the frontal cortex of Alzheimer patients carrying apolipoprotein ε4 allele

We measured the activities of choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) in the post mortem frontal cortex in 32 Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients with different apolipoprotein E (apoE) genotypes. The ChAT values were significantly lower for the AD patients with 2 e4 alleles than for those with 0 e4 (ANOVA, P < 0.05). The ChAT activities of AD patients carrying 2 or 1 e4 alleles and those without the e4 allele also differed significantly: 16.3 ± 15.2 versus 30.5 ± 20.6 pmol/mg protein per min, ANOVA, P < 0.05. However, the AD patients carrying the e4 allele were significantly younger than those with 0 e4 allele. The study indicates that AD patients carrying the e4 allele have a more severe cholinergic deficit than the AD patients without the e4 allele.

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