From parent to child

[Flowergirl]

My sibling and I both have apoe4/4
According to 23&me. I recently got an analysis of my mother’s dna file and she is 3/3. Is it possible to inherit an apoe4 variant from a parent that does not have apoe4?

[NF52]

My sibling and I both have apoe4/4
According to 23&me. I recently got an analysis of my mother’s dna file and she is 3/3. Is it possible to inherit an apoe4 variant from a parent that does not have apoe4?

Hi Flowergirl!
I too am Apoe4/4, so welcome to a special club of the 2% or so of us with both benefits (good verbal skills, possibly lower risk of cancer) along with some risks we can do lots to reduce!
Since 23&me reports about a 99% accuracy rate, I wonder if the company that analyzed your mother’s DNA wasn’t using the same two SNPs (or parts of genes) that 23&me used. You and your sibling would have inherited that one copy of APOE 4 from each parent.

[Flowergirl]

thanks. That was what I was thinking - that there is a mistake somewhere. My question is really if a parent does not have the apoe4 gene can they still pass one to their child as a recessive gene? It also doesn’t seem likely that both my sibling and I would show apoe4/4 when one parent is 3/3. My sibling and I had ours analyzed by 23&me but I had my mother’s data file from ancestry analyzed by Xcode. Thanks for the input !

[MarcR]

Ancestry's reporting is questionable - here's a prior post explaining the issue.

[Matisse]

No, a parent without an apoe 4 cannot pass a 4 to their child, recessively or otherwise. As others have said Ancestry results are suspect, particularly with apoe.

[Jenny B]

My sibling and I both have apoe4/4
According to 23&me. I recently got an analysis of my mother’s dna file and she is 3/3. Is it possible to inherit an apoe4 variant from a parent that does not have apoe4?

Hi Flowergirl. I just wanted to take this opportunity to welcome you to the ApoE4.info community since this is your first post here, and show you around a bit. It seems your question has been answered so I'll just direct you to how to find resources, stories and more. One really interesting resource is the Primer written by a doctor who is herself, ApoE 4/4. It is an introduction to ApoE4 and possible prevention strategies. Also, the How-To Guide can help you navigate the ApoE4.info website. We hope you find all you need and more here.

Warm regards,

Jenny