The Genetics of Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia. According to WHO data, Alzheimer's disease accounts for 60-70% of cases of dementia. Dementia symptoms may appear in some elderly people, but they are not part of normal aging. Approximately 5% of cases are early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Understanding the genetics of Alzheimer's disease can help assess the genetic risk of early-onset or late-onset Alzheimer's disease.
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If you have an APOE4 allele, your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease is 2 to 3 times higher than the general population;

And if you have two APOE4 alleles, your risk of developing AD is 10 to 15 times higher than the general population.


Van Cauwenberghe, C., Van Broeckhoven, C. & Sleegers, K. The genetic landscape of Alzheimer disease: clinical implications and perspectives. Genet Med 18, 421–430 (2016).

About 35-60% of patients with early-onset Alzheimer's disease have a family history.

Porter, T., Gozt, A.K., Mastaglia, F.L. and Laws, S.M. (2019). The Role of Genetics in Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease. In Neurodegeneration and Alzheimer's Disease.

Related test services

CoGenesis® AD

Screening for gene mutations associate with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD). It helps to get a confirmatory diagnosis and family planning.

APOE test

For identifying the combination of your APOE genotypes, used as an aid in late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD) diagnosis or indicate your risk level of developing AD.
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Product Comparison

Alzheimer’s Disease-related tests
CoGenesis® AD APOE test
Gene tested APP, PSEN1, PSEN2, APOE, TREM2, MAPT APOE
Target of service
  • People who have been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease
  • People who are suspected of having early-onset Alzheimer’s disease
  • People with family members with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease
  • People who have been diagnosed with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease
  • People who are suspected of having late-onset Alzheimer’s disease
  • People with family members with Alzheimer’s disease

Fast and accurate confirmatory diagnosis of disease

Biomarker evidence may provide additional diagnostic certainty of Alzheimer's disease.

Discover treatment options

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Aducanumab as the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease in June 2021. However, people with the APOE4 gene for Alzheimer’s tend to have a higher risk of brain swelling side effects. Knowing the disease-causing gene can assist in personalized treatments.

The process

1

Order and receive a saliva collection kit.

2

Register the sample collection tube barcode online, then take a sample.

3

Mail the kit back to Codex’s laboratory for analysis.

4

Results are provided to you securely on the codex website within four weeks from receipt of sample.

A high accuracy standard

Steps Accuracy
DNA sequencing 99.9%
Variant calling – SNP >99%*#
Variant calling – Indel >99%*#

* Passed GenQA/UK NEQAS external quality assurance

# The interpretation of sequencing variants is based on the current understanding of the variants at the time it was observed, which may change over time as more information about the genes becomes available. Not all variants are represented in this report.

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