Back

APOE4 Allele Frequencies Show Dramatic Variation Across Indian Populations

Ramdas, S.; Kahali, B.

2026-04-13 genetic and genomic medicine
10.64898/2026.04.09.26350483 medRxiv
Show abstract

The APOE {varepsilon}4 allele is the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimers Disease. However, its distribution across Indian populations is poorly characterized. We analyze APOE allele frequencies in 9,524 individuals from 83 distinct populations in the GenomeIndia dataset. {varepsilon}4 frequencies show large variation across populations within India, ranging from 2.7% to 36.1%, with a median of 11%. Tribal populations have higher {varepsilon}4 frequencies compared to non-tribal groups, while Tibeto-Burman populations have significantly lower frequencies. One tribal population from the northern coastal highlands has {varepsilon}4 frequency of 0.36, with 59% of individuals being carriers. {varepsilon}4 carrier status correlates significantly with lipid phenotypes including LDL, HDL, total cholesterol, and triglycerides. Collectively, these findings reveal exceptional genetic diversity in Alzheimers Disease risk across India and have important implications for population-specific screening strategies, genetic counseling, and precision medicine approaches to dementia prevention.

Matching journals

The top 8 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.