Genetic variability of apolipoprotein E in a Polish population.

Apolipoprotein E (apoE, protein; APOE, gene) is a component of very low density lipoprotein and high-density lipoprotein and plays an important role in lipoprotein metabolism. There are three common alleles of APOE (*2, *3, and *4), which encode the E2, E3, and E4 isoforms of the protein. Distribution of apoE isoforms shows marked variation among various ethnic groups. Direct phenotyping of human APOE in plasma was used to estimate APOE allele frequencies in 137 unrelated blood donors from 3 regions of Poland. The relative frequencies observed for the APOE*2, APOE*3, and APOE*4 alleles were 0.055, 0.839, and 0.106, respectively. The data have been compared with data found in other population groups. The frequency of the APOE*2 allele in Poles was among the lowest in Europe.