Faculty Bibliography

Aberrant phosphorylation of the neuronal cytoskeleton is an early pathological event in Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Here, we demonstrate in the brains of AD patients that neurofilament hyperphosphorylation in neocortical pyramidal neurons is accompanied by activation of both Erk1,2 and calpain. Using immunochemistry, Western blot analysis, and kinase activity measurements, we show in primary hippocampal and cerebellar granule (CG) neurons that calcium influx activates calpain and Erk1,2 and increases neurofilament phosphorylation on carboxy terminal polypeptide sites known to be modulated by Erk1,2 and to be altered in AD. Blocking Erk1,2 activity either with antisense oligonucleotides to Erk1,2 mRNA sequences or by specifically inhibiting its upstream activating kinase MEK1,2 markedly reduced neurofilament phosphorylation. Calpeptin, a cell-permeable calpain inhibitor, blocked both Erk1,2 activation and neurofilament hyperphosphorylation at concentrations that inhibit calpain-mediated cleavage of brain spectrin. By contrast, inhibiting Erk1,2 with U-0126, a specific inhibitor of Mek1,2, had no appreciable effect on ionomycin-induced calpain activation. These findings demonstrate that, under conditions of calcium injury in neurons, calpains are upstream activators of Erk1,2 signaling and are likely to mediate in part the hyperphosphorylation of neurofilaments and tau seen at early stages of AD as well as the neuron survival-related functions of the MAP kinase pathway

Cystatin C, an inhibitor of cysteine proteases, colocalizes with amyloid beta (Abeta) in parenchymal and vascular amyloid deposits in brains of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, suggesting that cystatin C has a role in AD. Cystatin C also colocalizes with beta amyloid precursor protein (betaAPP) in transfected cultured cells. In vitro analysis of the association between the two proteins revealed that binding of cystatin C to full-length betaAPP does not affect the level of Abeta secretion. Here we studied the effect of in vivo overexpression of cystatin C on the levels of endogenous brain Abeta. We have generated lines of transgenic mice expressing either wild-type human cystatin C or the Leu68Gln variant that forms amyloid deposits in the cerebral vessels of Icelandic patients with hereditary cerebral hemorrhage, under control sequences of the human cystatin C gene. Western blot analysis of brain homogenates was used to select lines of mice expressing various levels of the transgene. Analysis of Abeta40 and Abeta42 concentrations in the brain showed no difference between transgenic mice and their nontransgenic littermates. Thus, in vivo overexpression of human cystatin C does not affect Abeta levels in mice that do not deposit Abeta

Niemann-Pick Type C (NPC) is an inherited neurodegenerative disease of childhood and adolescence that develops from a failure of cholesterol trafficking within the endosomal-lysosomal pathway. Although NPC differs in major respects from Alzheimer's disease (AD), intriguing parallels exist in the cellular pathology of these two diseases, including neurofibrillary tangle formation, prominent lysosome system dysfunction, and influences of apolipoprotein E epsilon4 genotype. Added to these similarities are new findings that some neuronal populations develop abnormalities of endosomes resembling those seen at the earliest stages of AD and also accumulate beta-cleaved amyloid precursor protein (APP) and Abeta peptides within endosomes. In this commentary, the common features of endosome dysfunction are reviewed. Emerging evidence that endosome dysfunction may lead to beta-amyloidogenic APP processing or neurodegeneration by several different means is discussed

The cerebral deposition of amyloid beta-peptide, a central event in Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathogenesis, begins several years before the onset of clinical symptoms. Noninvasive detection of AD pathology at this initial stage would facilitate intervention and enhance treatment success. In this study, high-field MRI was used to detect changes in regional brain MR relaxation times in three types of mice: 1). transgenic mice (PS/APP) carrying both mutant genes for amyloid precursor protein (APP) and presenilin (PS), which have high levels and clear accumulation of beta-amyloid in several brain regions, starting from 10 weeks of age; 2). transgenic mice (PS) carrying only a mutant gene for presenilin (PS), which show subtly elevated levels of Abeta-peptide without beta-amyloid deposition; and 3). nontransgenic (NTg) littermates as controls. The transverse relaxation time T(2), an intrinsic MR parameter thought to reflect impaired cell physiology, was significantly reduced in the hippocampus, cingulate, and retrosplenial cortex, but not the corpus callosum, of PS-APP mice compared to NTg. No differences in T(1) values or proton density were detected between any groups of mice. These results indicate that T(2) may be a sensitive marker of abnormalities in this transgenic mouse model of AD

Abstract The enzyme gamma-secretase catalyzes the intramembrane proteolytic cleavage that generates the amyloid beta-peptide from the beta-amyloid precursor protein. The presenilin (PS) protein is one of the four integral membrane protein components of the mature gamma-secretase complex. The PS protein is itself subjected to endoproteolytic processing, generating stable N- and C-terminal fragment (NTF and CTF, respectively) heterodimers. Here we demonstrate that coexpression of PS1 NTF and CTF functionally mimics expression of the full-length PS1 protein and restores gamma-secretase activity in PS-deficient mammalian cells. The coexpressed fragments re-associate with each other inside the cell, where they also interact with nicastrin, another gamma-secretase complex component. Analysis of gamma-secretase activity following the expression of mutant forms of NTF and CTF, under conditions bypassing endoproteolysis, indicated that the putatively catalytic Asp257 and Asp385 residues have a direct effect on gamma-secretase activity. Moreover, we demonstrate that expression of the wild-type CTF rescues endoproteolytic cleavage of C-terminally truncated PS1 molecules that are otherwise uncleaved and inactive. Recovery of cleavage is critically dependent on the integrity of Asp385. Taken together, our findings indicate that ectopically expressed NTF and CTF restore functional gamma-secretase complexes and that the presence of full-length PS1 is not a requirement for proper complex assembly

In Alzheimer disease (AD) patients, early memory dysfunction is associated with glucose hypometabolism and neuronal loss in the hippocampus. Double transgenic (Tg) mice co-expressing the M146L presenilin 1 (PS1) and K670N/M671L, the double 'Swedish' amyloid precursor protein (APP) mutations, are a model of AD amyloid-beta deposition (Abeta) that exhibits earlier and more profound impairments of working memory and learning than single APP mutant mice. In this study we compared performance on spatial memory tests, regional glucose metabolism, Abeta deposition, and neuronal loss in APP/PS1, PS1, and non-Tg (nTg) mice. At the age of 2 months no significant morphological and metabolic differences were detected between 3 studied genotypes. By 8 months, however, APP/PS1 mice developed selective impairment of spatial memory, which was significantly worse at 22 months and was accompanied by reduced glucose utilization in the hippocampus and a 35.8% dropout of neurons in the CA1 region. PS1 mice exhibited a similar degree of neuronal loss in CA1 but minimal memory deficit and no impairment of glucose utilization compared to nTg mice. Deficits in 22 month APP/PS1 mice were accompanied by a substantially elevated Abeta load, which rose from 2.5% +/- 0.4% at 8 months to 17.4% +/- 4.6%. These findings implicate Abeta or APP in the behavioral and metabolic impairments in APP/PS1 mice and the failure to compensate functionally for PS1-related hippocampal cell loss

In Alzheimer's disease (AD), the neuropathologic hallmarks of beta-amyloid deposition and neurofibrillary degeneration are associated with early and progressive pathology of the endosomal-lysosomal system. Abnormalities of autophagy, a major pathway to lysosomes for protein and organelle turnover, include marked accumulations of autophagy-related vesicular compartments (autophagic vacuoles or AVs) in affected neurons. Here, we investigated the possibility that AVs contain the proteases and substrates necessary to cleave the amyloid precursor protein (APP) to A beta peptide that forms beta-amyloid, a key pathogenic factor in AD. AVs were highly purified using a well-established metrizamide gradient procedure from livers of transgenic YAC mice overexpressing wild-type human APP. By Western blot analysis, AVs contained APP, beta C

Early endosomes are a major site of amyloid precursor protein (APP) processing and a convergence point for molecules of pathologic relevance to Alzheimer's disease (AD). Neuronal endosome enlargement, reflecting altered endocytic function, is a disease-specific response that develops years before the earliest stage of AD and Down syndrome (DS). We examined how endocytic dysfunction is related to Abeta accumulation and distribution in early stage AD and DS. We found by ELISA and immunocytochemistry that the appearance of enlarged endosomes coincided with an initial rise in soluble Abeta40 and Abeta42 peptides, which preceded amyloid deposition. Double-immunofluorescence using numerous Abeta antibodies showed that intracellular Abeta localized principally to rab5-positive endosomes in neurons from AD brains and was prominent in enlarged endosomes. Abeta was not detectable in neurons from normal controls and was diminished after amyloid deposition in neuropathologically confirmed AD. These studies support growing evidence that endosomal pathology contributes significantly to Abeta overproduction and accumulation in sporadic AD and in AD associated with DS and may signify earlier disease-relevant disturbances of the signaling functions of endosomes

Presenilins are polytopic, integral proteins that control intramembranous proteolysis at the 'gamma-' and 'epsilon-' cleavage sites of the Alzheimer amyloid-beta precursor protein (APP) to yield amyloid-beta peptide (Abeta) and the APP intracellular domain (AICD). We have overexpressed a constitutively active, pathogenic form of PS1 (known as PS1 Delta exon 9) together with its substrate, APP-C99, in Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf9) cells. Sf9 cells have been reported to lack endogenous gamma-secretase, an unexpected finding since there exists an insect homologue of PS1. In our hands, neither intact insect cells coexpressing PS1 Delta exon 9/APP-C99 nor the aqueous homogenates of these cells displayed obvious products of the gamma- or epsilon-secretase reactions, as reported. Surprisingly, when APP-C99-expressing cells were homogenized in 3[(3-cholamidopropyl) dimethylammonio]-2-hydroxypropanesulfonic acid (CHAPSO), a detergent known to support gamma-secretase activity, subsequent incubation led to the accumulation of an AICD-like peptide (AICD-L). Aspartyl proteinase inhibitors were effective in preventing the appearance of AICD-L, but inhibitors of other classes of proteinases were ineffective. Immunoprecipitation-mass spectrometry of AICD-L revealed its identity as the minor of the two known AICDs