An APOA1 promoter polymorphism is associated with cognitive performance in patients with multiple sclerosis

Background Elevated ApoA1 levels have been associated with decreased dementia risk. The A-allele of the APOA1 –75G/A promoter polymorphism has been associated with elevated ApoA1 levels. Objective We sought to investigate the effect of the APOA1 –75G/A promoter polymorphism on cognitive performance in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Methods A total of 138 patients with MS and 43 controls were studied and underwent neuropsychological assessment with Rao’s Brief Repeatable Battery and the Stroop test. All patients were genotyped for APOA1. Results APOA1 A-allele carriers displayed superior overall cognitive performance compared with non-carriers (P 0.008) and had a three-fold decrease in the relative risk of overall cognitive impairment (OR 0.29, 95% CI 0.11–0.74). Regarding performance on individual cognitive domains, although APOA1 A-allele carriers performed better than non-carriers on all tests, this was significant only for semantic verbal fluency and the Stroop interference task (P 0.036 and 0.018, respectively). Conclusions We found an association of the APOA1 –75G/A promoter polymorphism with cognitive performance in MS. This effect was most prominent on semantic verbal fluency and the Stroop interference task.