APOE and Alzheimer disease: Neurochemically, ApoE was co-localized with AD neuropathological lesions, where plaques and tangles were deposited, and an increase of ApoE mRNA in astrocytes was found in the hippocampus and other regions of the brain that had degenerated neuron cell bodies or synaptic remodeling; this event indicates the occurrence of lipid uptake in the neurodegeneration process of AD74,76.