Can someone explain the biochemical and gentic aspects of Alzheimer's disease?

Question

What role does ApoE3 and ApoE4 play, how does apoe3 become apoe4? what does beta amyloid do? what are the factors that produce amyloid? how does SoRL1 play into this? the more info, the better.
I also have access to pubmed and other papers/journals. Direction to relevant papers will also be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I can't answer your questions, but a friend of mine runs a layperson's medical blog on Alzheimer's called The Tangled Neuron. She includes lots of links and references and if you email her she'd be glad to help you.

Answer 2

Biochemical characteristics
Alzheimer's disease has been identified as a protein misfolding disease due to the accumulation of abnormally folded amyloid beta protein in the brains of AD patients. Amyloid beta, also written Aβ, is a short peptide that is an abnormal proteolytic byproduct of the transmembrane protein amyloid precursor

Genetics

The two basic types of AD are familial and sporadic. Familial AD (FAD) is a rare form of AD, affecting less than 10 percent of AD patients. All FAD is early-onset, meaning the disease develops before age 65. It is caused by gene mutations on chromosomes 1, 14, and 21. Even if one of these mutated genes is inherited from a parent, the person will almost always develop early-onset AD. This inheritance pattern is referred to as autosomal dominant inheritance. In other words, all offspring in the same generation have a 50/50 chance of developing FAD if one of their parents had the disease