Enhancing ABCA1 activity to reduce ApoE and ABCA1 aggregation is a potential therapeutic strategy for the prevention of ApoE4 aggregation-driven pathology.<b>SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT</b> ApoE protein plays a key role in the formation of amyloid plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD).
Considerable evidence from genetic (using ABCA1 overexpression) and pharmacological (using synthetic LXR agonists) studies in AD mouse models suggests that increased levels of lipidated apoE can improve cognitive performance and, in some strains, can reduce amyloid burden.
Using next generation sequencing of pooled DNA samples, we sequenced all the coding regions of ABCA1 in 311 LOAD cases and 360 control individuals drawn from the Greek population to identify low frequency non-synonymous variation.
Further, we did not observe significant and replicated association of other ABCA1 SNPs we examined with the disease, thus these ABCA1 variants do not appear to influence the risk of LOAD in this study.