Genetic determinants of plasma lipid response to dietary intervention: therole of the APOA1/C3/A4 gene cluster and the APOE gene

Polymorphisms at the APOA1/C3/A4 gene cluster and the APOE gene have been e xtensively studied in order to examine their potential association with pla sma lipid levels, coronary heart disease risk and more recently with inter- individual variability in response to dietary therapies. Although the resul ts have not been uniform across studies, the current research supports the concept that variation at these genes explains a significant, but still rat her small, proportion of the variability in fasting and postprandial plasma lipid responses to dietary interventions. This information constitutes the initial frame to develop panels of genetic markers that could be used to p redict individual responsiveness to dietary therapy for the prevention of c oronary heart disease. Future progress in this complex area will come from experiments carried out using animal models, and from carefully controlled dietary protocols in humans that should include the assessment of several o ther candidate gene loci coding for products that play a relevant role in l ipoprotein metabolism (i.e. APOB, CETP, LPL, FABP2, SRBI, ABC1 and CYP7).