Association of APOE Polymorphism with Stroke in North Indian Population

Stroke is the second most frequent cause of mortality and disability worldwide with two thirds strokes occurring in individuals older than 65 years of age. It is a multifactorial disease with hetrogenous etiopathogenesis. Various studies show that the human apolipoprotein E (ApoE) may have an impact on stroke occurrence which is substantiated by the fact that there is strong correlation between APOE genotyping with cholesterol metabolism, atherosclerosis, ischemic heart diseases, cerebral amylod angiopathy and stroke. ApoE gene is located on chromosome 19 coding for apoliporotein E. It is present in three isoforms: ApoE2, ApoE3 and ApoE4 with six genotypes E2/2, E2/3, E2/4, E3/3, E3/4 and E4/4. On this back ground the present study was taken up to find out the distribution various ApoE genotype in stroke and association of ApoE4 with stroke. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was performed on non diseased and diseased subjects with stroke from outpatient services of Neurology department of Institute of Human Behavior & Allied Sciences (IHBAS), New Delhi (India). All the subjects with acute onset of persistent neurological deficit were diagnosed as stroke, confirmed by neuroimaging (CT/ MRI), whereas in control group subjects included were attending the department of Neurology in same hospital for illness other than stroke and without any memory complaints. The patients of head injury presenting with stroke were excluded. APOE genotyping was done in all subjects by PCR-RFLP method [1].