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- Portelius, Erik, 1977, et al.
(author)
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Altered Cerebrospinal Fluid Levels of Amyloid beta and Amyloid Precursor-Like Protein 1 Peptides in Down's Syndrome
- 2014
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In: Neuromolecular medicine. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1535-1084 .- 1559-1174. ; 16:2, s. 510-516
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Down's syndrome (DS) patients develop early Alzheimer's disease pathology with abundant cortical amyloid plaques, likely due to overproduction of the amyloid precursor protein (APP), which subsequently leads to amyloid beta (A beta) aggregation. This is reflected in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of the 42-amino acid long A beta peptide (A beta 1-42), which are increased in young DS patients and decreases with age. However, it is unclear whether DS also affects other aspects of A beta metabolism, including production of shorter C- and N-terminal truncated A beta peptides, and production of peptides from the amyloid precursor-like protein 1 (APLP1), which is related to APP, and cleaved by the same enzymatic processing machinery. APLP1-derived peptides may be surrogate markers for A beta 1-42 production in the brain. Here, we used hybrid immunoaffinity-mass spectrometry and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays to monitor several A beta and APLP1 peptides in CSF from DS patients (n = 12) and healthy controls (n = 20). CSF levels of A beta 1-42 and three endogenous peptides derived from APLP1 (APL1 beta 25, APL1 beta 27 and APL1 beta 28) were decreased in DS compared with controls, while a specific A beta peptide, A beta 1-28, was increased in a majority of the DS individuals. This study indicates that DS causes previously unknown specific alterations of APP and APLP1 metabolism.
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| 2. |
- Alic, I., et al.
(author)
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Patient-specific Alzheimer-like pathology in trisomy 21 cerebral organoids reveals BACE2 as a gene dose-sensitive AD suppressor in human brain
- 2021
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In: Molecular Psychiatry. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1359-4184 .- 1476-5578. ; 26:10, s. 5766-5788
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A population of more than six million people worldwide at high risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) are those with Down Syndrome (DS, caused by trisomy 21 (T21)), 70% of whom develop dementia during lifetime, caused by an extra copy of beta-amyloid-(A beta)-precursor-protein gene. We report AD-like pathology in cerebral organoids grown in vitro from non-invasively sampled strands of hair from 71% of DS donors. The pathology consisted of extracellular diffuse and fibrillar A beta deposits, hyperphosphorylated/pathologically conformed Tau, and premature neuronal loss. Presence/absence of AD-like pathology was donor-specific (reproducible between individual organoids/iPSC lines/experiments). Pathology could be triggered in pathology-negative T21 organoids by CRISPR/Cas9-mediated elimination of the third copy of chromosome 21 gene BACE2, but prevented by combined chemical beta and gamma-secretase inhibition. We found that T21 organoids secrete increased proportions of A beta-preventing (A beta 1-19) and A beta-degradation products (A beta 1-20 and A beta 1-34). We show these profiles mirror in cerebrospinal fluid of people with DS. We demonstrate that this protective mechanism is mediated by BACE2-trisomy and cross-inhibited by clinically trialled BACE1 inhibitors. Combined, our data prove the physiological role of BACE2 as a dose-sensitive AD-suppressor gene, potentially explaining the dementia delay in similar to 30% of people with DS. We also show that DS cerebral organoids could be explored as pre-morbid AD-risk population detector and a system for hypothesis-free drug screens as well as identification of natural suppressor genes for neurodegenerative diseases.
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