THE ROLE OF REELIN GENE POLYMORPHISMS IN THE PATHOGENESIS OF ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE IN A GREEK POPULATION

Reelin is an extracellular signaling glycoprotein, which plays a significant role in cytoarchitectonic pattern formation of different brain areas during development. Reelin gene is located on chromosome 7q22. The aim of this study is to investigate the possible association of the following reelin polymorphisms SNP Intron12A/C (rs727531), SNP Exon15A/G (rs2072403), SNP Intron15G/T (rs2072402), SNP Exon22c/g (rs362691), SNP Intron41G/T (rs362719) and SNP Intron59C/T (rs736707) in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease and the frequency of these polymorphisms in the population of Northern Greece. The study included two groups, A and B. Group A consisted of 50 patients with Alzheimer's disease and group B of 70 healthy controls. Genomic DNA isolated from blood was used for PCR and subsequent RFLP analysis. According to our results, the exon 22 C/G marker of reelin is significantly associated with Alzheimer's disease in the Greek population but the Likelihood Ratio Test shows that the GT haplotype of this polymorphism does not affect the phenotype of group A in relation to Group B. This is the first report on a Greek population-based approach.