Werner helicase polymorphism is not associated with Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder in the elderly and is also considered a progeroid genetic syndrome. The etiology of AD is complex and the mechanisms underlying its pathophysiology remains to be clarified. Werner syndrome (WS) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized as a segmental progeroid syndrome. The gene (WRN) was recently identified. Its product acts as a DNA helicase and exonuclease. This study investigates the association of AD with the WRN 1367 polymorphisms in samples of 67 DA patients, 56 elderly healthy and 66 young healthy controls. DNA was isolated from blood cells, amplified by PCR and digested with PmaCI. We observed that the genotype distributions of WRN 1367 variants were within Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in all subject samples. Furthermore, chi-square test comparison for genotype distributions and allele frequencies did not reveal any significant difference among the three groups of subjects (P>0.05). These results support the idea that these variants are not involved as a risk factor for developing AD.