COL6A1 and early-onset autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease: As discussed above, higher levels of the Col6a1 transcript and protein were observed in hippocampal neurons of mice expressing mutant human APP, and a higher expression of COL6A1, COL6A2 and COL6A3 mRNA was also detected in the dentate gyrus (Box 1) of Alzheimer's disease patients compared with cognitively normal controls (Cheng et al., 2009).