Genetic variation in galectin-3 gene associates with cognitive function at old age

Inflammation plays an important role in the development of cognitive decline and dementia in old age. Galectin-3 is known for its role in acute and chronic inflammation. We assessed whether genetic variation in the LGALS3 gene, encoding for galectin-3, associates with cognitive function in the 5804 participants of the PROspective Study of Pravastatin in the Elderly at Risk (PROSPER). The rs4644, rs4652, and rs1009977 polymorphisms were genotyped to cover the genomic region of the LGALS3 gene. Subjects carrying the variant alleles of each LGALS3 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) had significantly higher baseline C-reactive protein concentrations (p < 0.01). Carriers of the variant alleles had significantly worse performance at baseline compared with carriers of the wild-type allele (all p < 0.05). In the longitudinal analysis, we found that carriers of the variant alleles had worse performance at the attention tasks compared with carriers of the wild-type allele. Although observed differences were small, these data suggest that genetic variation in the LGALS3 gene might be associated with cognitive function in an elderly population. Further research is warranted to confirm these results.