Absence of association on aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) polymorphism with Mongolian Alzheimer patients

The epsilon4 version of the Apolipoprotein E gene has been proved to be a risk factor for the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Furthermore, another gene mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2) has also been proposed to be potentially associated with AD, based on its possible relations toward acetaldehyde accumulation which further damage brain cells. Yet this observation had been limited in several groups of Oriental populations. In this study we gathered 106 unrelated Mongolian SAD (sporadic Alzheimer disease) patients and 100 controls in performing an analysis of ALDH2 genotyping. Nevertheless, the results showed that neither genotype nor allele distribution of ALDH2 between patients and controls presents significant differences. Further study on the ALDH2 correlation with APOE epsilon4 displays no disparity. Hereby gene ALDH2 may not represent a risk factor in the development of AD among Mongolian population.