The APOE4 protein's single amino acid substitution alters its conformation and impairs its function as a cholesterol acceptor and transporter.

“I think so what happens with ephors it causes a conformational change in the protein and it basically has this you can see these x-ray crystallography picture is basically there's this arm the kind of like flipped out and it kind of it kind of just alters the way it interacts through the receptors and where things are bound so then it alters the way that cholesterol has taken up and you know in the setting of any kind of interest or inflammatory process you know because it's obviously part of that system it seems to sort of amplify that”