ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2015
Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) polymorphism is related to differences in potential fertility in women: a case of antagonistic pleiotropy?
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 62 citations in OpenAlex.
- Divergent biological consequences of APOE isoforms across industrialized and non-industrial environments.PLoS genetics · 2026Article
- The physiological effects of APOE genotype in healthy young/middle-aged individuals.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Article
- Apolipoprotein E Polymorphism and Reproductive Patterns Among Postreproductive Women.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2026Article
- Transcriptome Sequencing and Identification ofAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Divergent Biological Consequences of APOE Isoforms Across Industrialized and Non-Industrial Environments.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Impact ofProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Midlife and late-life environmental exposures on dementia risk in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study: The modifying effects of ApoE.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2024Article
- Apolipoprotein E polymorphisms and female fertility in a transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- APOE ε4 carriage associates with improved myocardial performance from adolescence to older age.BMC cardiovascular disorders · 2024Article
- Estradiol improves behavior in FAD transgenic mice that expressFrontiers in endocrinology · 2024Article
- More evidence for widespread antagonistic pleiotropy in polymorphic disease alleles.Frontiers in genetics · 2024Review
- Lower mortality risk in APOE4 carriers with normal cognitive ageing.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Article
- Role of estrogen in women's Alzheimer's disease risk as modified by APOE.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2023Review
- Single-cell analysis of menstrual endometrial tissues defines phenotypes associated with endometriosis.BMC medicine · 2022Article
- The influence of 17q21.31 andFrontiers in aging neuroscience · 2022Review
- Dissociable effects ofNature aging · 2021Article
- The Role of ApoE Expression and Variability of Its Glycosylation in Human Reproductive Health in the Light of Current Information.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- Comparison of the fertility of tumor suppressor gene-deficient C57BL/6 mouse strains reveals stable reproductive aging and novel pleiotropic gene.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Apolipoprotein E variants correlate with the clinical presentation of paediatric inflammatory bowel disease: A cross-sectional study.World journal of gastroenterology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The alleles that are detrimental to health, especially in older age, are thought to persist in populations because they also confer some benefits for individuals (through antagonistic pleiotropy). The ApoE4 allele at the ApoE locus, encoding apolipoprotein E (ApoE), significantly increases risk of poor health, and yet it is present in many populations at relatively high frequencies. Why has it not been replaced by natural selection with the health-beneficial ApoE3 allele? ApoE is a major supplier of cholesterol precursor for the production of ovarian oestrogen and progesterone, thus ApoE has been suggested as the potential candidate gene that may cause variation in reproductive performance. Our results support this hypothesis showing that in 117 regularly menstruating women those with genotypes with at least one ApoE4 allele had significantly higher levels of mean luteal progesterone (144.21 pmol l(-1)) than women with genotypes without ApoE4 (120.49 pmol l(-1)), which indicates higher potential fertility. The hormonal profiles were based on daily data for entire menstrual cycles. We suggest that the finding of higher progesterone in women with ApoE4 allele could provide first strong evidence for an evolutionary mechanism of maintaining the ancestral and health-worsening ApoE4 allele in human populations.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.