Association of APOE and other genetic polymorphisms with prospective concussion risk in a prospective cohort study of college athletes

The management of sports concussion and an understanding of its risk factors are major foci in the literature on athletic injury. Although there is known influence of some genetic polymorphisms (GPs), such as APOE and the APOE promoter, on traumatic brain injury (TBI) outcome in non-athletic populations, very little work has focused on the role these GPs may play in sports concussion. We completed a large (n=3274) multi-center prospective cohort study of college athletes to study possible associations between various GPs and prospectively occurring sports concussion. We found no significant relationship between the APOE e4 allele, the APOE G-219T promoter, the tau exon 6 Ser53pro or the tau His47Tyr GPs on prospective concussion. Additional study of other GPs and haplotype combinations is a next logical step in the search for genetic predisposition to sports-related concussion.