Data from: Distinct association between APOE ε2 and Aβ in Alzheimer- and vascular-type cognitive impairment

Objective: To investigate the association between apolipoprotein E (APOE)
genotype and amyloid-β (Aβ) burden, as measured by PET in patients with
subcortical vascular cognitive impairment (SVCI) and those with
Alzheimer’s disease-related cognitive impairment (ADCI). Methods: This was
a cross-sectional study of 310 patients with SVCI and 999 with ADCI. To
evaluate the effects of APOE genotype or diagnostic group on
Aβ-positivity, we performed multivariate logistic regression analyses.
Further distinctive underlying features of latent subgroups were examined
by employing a latent class cluster analysis approach. Results: In
comparison with ε3 homozygotes, in the ADCI group, ε2 carriers showed a
lower frequency of Aβ-positivity (odds ratio [OR] 0.43, 95% CI 0.23–0.79)
while in the SVCI group, ε2 carriers showed a higher frequency of
Aβ-positivity (OR 2.26, 95% CI 1.02–5.01). In particular, we observed an
interaction effect of ε2 carrier status and diagnostic group on
Aβ-positivity (OR 5.12, 95% CI 1.93–13.56), in that relative to ε3
homozygotes, there were more Aβ-positive ε2 carriers in the SVCI group
than in the ADCI group. We also identified latent subgroups of Aβ-positive
APOE ε2 carriers with SVCI and Aβ-positive APOE ε4 carriers with ADCI.
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that APOE ε2 shows distinctly associated
with Aβ deposition in patients with SVCI and those with ADCI. Our findings
further suggest that there is a distinctive subgroup of Aβ-positive APOE
ε2 carriers with SVCI among patients with cognitive impairments.