No evidence of an association between CYP2D6 polymorphisms among Japanese and dementia with Lewy bodies

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is the second most frequent degenerative de mentia among the elderly, following Alzheimer-type dementia (ATD). An assoc iation of DLB with CYP2D6*4, one of the cytochrome P450IID6 (debrisoquine 4 -hydroxylase; CYP2D6) gene polymorphisms, was reported previously, but this is controversial. Moreover, these reports have been restricted to Caucasia n populations. Therefore, we compared frequencies of CYP2D6*3, *4, and *10 mutant alleles in 17 Japanese DLB patients to those among Alzheimer-type de mentia (ATD) patients and healthy controls. Polymerase chain reaction ampli fication and restriction fragment length polymorphism analyses were used fo r genotyping, No significant difference of genotype or mutant allele freque ncies was detected between DLB, ATD, and healthy controls. The present resu lts do not support the suggestion that the CYP2D6 gene is related to DLB su sceptibility, at least in the Japanese population.