Interleukin-1B polymorphism is associated with age at onset of Alzheimer’s disease

Interleukin-1α (IL-1α) and IL-1β are two pro-inflammatory cytokines involved in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The genes coding for IL-1α (IL-1A) and for IL-1β (IL-1B) are clustered in chromosome 2q14–2q14.2. In a previous work, we investigated the role of IL-1A promoter polymorphism (−889 position) in AD pathogenesis: IL-1A −889 TT genotype was associated with sporadic early onset AD. We now report the study on polymorphism of exon 5 IL-1B in position +3953, the nearest polymorphism to −889 IL-1A. We found that the genotype distribution of IL-1B +3953 varied significantly between patients with early and late onset of AD (P<0.0001). Patients carrying IL-1B +3953 CT or TT genotypes had 4 or 5 years anticipation of AD onset (P=0.0034; odds ratio for early onset, 3.01) and 7 years anticipation if they also carried the IL-1A −889 TT genotype (P<0.0001; odds ratio for early onset, 7.4). These data further support a role for inflammation-related genes in AD or indicate linkage disequilibrium with an unknown chromosome 2 locus.