Alzheimer's disease and 5-HTTLPR polymorphism of the serotonin transportergene: No evidence for an association

Recently two independent research groups consistently reported a significan t association between the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) gene and late-onset sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD). They found that the "short" allele of t he 5-HTT gene-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR), which is associated wit h reduced transcriptional activity of the gene, increases the risk of devel oping late-onset AD, The present study tried to replicate this finding in a Japanese sample. We genotyped 41 patients with early-onset AD (<65 years), 82 with late-onset AD, and 336 controls, There was no significant differen ce in genotype or allele distribution between either patient group and cont rols in our sample, suggesting that the 5-HTTLPR does not play a major role in the pathogenesis of AD in Japanese. Am. J. Med. Genet. (Neuropsychiatr, Genet.) 96:307-309, 2000, (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.