Abstract
In the recent years, several cytokines have been associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) development and progression and many studies have correlated this risk with polymorphisms in the genes encoding these molecules. Also the type 1 cytokine interferon (IFN)-gamma belongs to a cytokine class that affects the immune function; in fact it plays a major role in defence against viruses and intracellular pathogens but also in the induction of the immune-mediated inflammatory response. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of IFN-gamma in AD by studying the association of +874T-->A IFN-gamma gene polymorphism with AD. We included in this study 115 AD patients (70 women, 45 men, mean age 80) and 90 sex and age-matched healthy controls (HC, 51 women, 39 men, mean age 82) from northern Italy. Genomic DNA was extracted with the salting-out method from whole blood of all subjects; the genotyping at IFN-gamma loci was assessed with ARMS-PCR. The data obtained from the +874T-->A IFN-gamma gene polymorphism analysis of AD patients and HC lack of any statistically significant differences also when stratified according to gender. In conclusion these results confirm the previous shown lack of association between +874T-->A IFN-gamma gene polymorphism and the risk of AD. However, other polymorphisms have been demonstrated to influence IFN-gamma transcription and since natural killer cells of AD patients show higher production of the cytokine, further analysis will be necessary to clarify the role of this gene in the pathogenesis of the disease.