{"id":226295,"date":"2025-12-02T05:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T11:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/switching-risk-and-protective-alleles-improves-alzheimers-disease-like-signatures-and-disruptions-in-mice"},"modified":"2025-12-02T05:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T11:12:10","slug":"switching-risk-and-protective-alleles-improves-alzheimers-disease-like-signatures-and-disruptions-in-mice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/switching-risk-and-protective-alleles-improves-alzheimers-disease-like-signatures-and-disruptions-in-mice","title":{"rendered":"Switching risk and protective alleles improves Alzheimer\u2019s-disease-like signatures and disruptions in mice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/switching-risk-and-protective-alleles-improves-alzheimers-disease-like-signatures-and-disruptions-in-mice.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Alzheimer\u2019s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the progressive degradation of brain cells, as well as an associated decline in memory and other mental functions. Earlier research found that different forms (i.e., alleles) of a gene known as apolipoprotein E (APOE) are associated with an increased or decreased risk of developing AD.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2023-09-uncover-genetic-traits-alzheimer.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">APOE gene<\/a> can be mutated into different variants (i.e., alleles), including APOE2, APOE3 and APOE4. Past studies have linked the presence of two APOE4 alleles to a higher risk of developing AD, while two APOE2 alleles were linked to a significantly lower risk of AD.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers at the University of Kentucky and other institutes <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2025-11-gene-reverses-alzheimer-experimental.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">genetically engineered<\/a> a type of mouse that carries a genetic \u201cswitch\u201d that can be activated with a drug and that converts the harmful APOE4 allele into the protective APOE2 allele.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alzheimer\u2019s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the progressive degradation of brain cells, as well as an associated decline in memory and other mental functions. Earlier research found that different forms (i.e., alleles) of a gene known as apolipoprotein E (APOE) are associated with an increased or decreased risk of developing AD. The [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11,412,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}