Variation at the ADAM10 gene locus is not associated with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Prion diseases are characterized by the accumulation in the brain of a misfolded and protease-resistant form of the prion protein (PrP(c)). PrP(c) contains an amyloidogenic, neurotoxic sequence that is essential for conversion into PrP(Sc), the pathological isoform. During normal processing, PrP(c) is cleaved at a site within this sequence, and this cleavage is thought to destroy the amyloidogenic potential of the protein. ADAM10, a disintegrin and metalloprotease that plays a key role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease, was recently shown to use PrP(c) as a substrate. We investigated whether variability in the ADAM10 gene could contribute to the pathogenesis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), by analyzing a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) within ADAM10, as a genetic marker potentially in linkage disequilibrium with a functional polymorphism, in patients with sporadic or variant CJD. We observed no significant differences in ADAM10 genotype or allele frequencies between CJD patients and healthy individuals. Moreover, the distribution of ADAM10 SNP genotypes and alleles did not differ between groups of patients based on genotype at the polymorphic codon 129 of the prion protein gene--the sole major genetic risk factor for CJD identified to date. Our data indicate that ADAM10 is unlikely to confer genetic susceptibility to CJD.