The adaptor protein Fe65 and APP processing

Abstract: The amyloid precursor protein (APP) protein has been in the limelight of research on Alzheimer´s disease (AD) pathogenesis because its proteolytic processing gives rise to the neurotoxic amyloid β (Aβ) peptide, the main constituent of amyloid plaques in the brains of AD patients. APP is sequentially processed by at least three different proteases termed α-, β-, and γ-secretases. The proteolytic processing of APP can be divided into two different pathways, the non-amyloidogenic and the amyloidogenic. Whether APP is processed by the non-amyloidogenic or the amyloidogenic pathway is highly dependent on colocalization of APP with the different processing enzymes. Hence, understanding the mechanism underlying regulation of APP trafficking and its related secretases is of great importance in our understanding of AD and AD pathogenesis. The aim of this thesis was to study the processing and trafficking of APP, how it may be regulated by the interaction with the adaptor protein, Fe65, and by a novel type of posttranslational modification, O-GlcNAcylation. We have used the human neuroblastoma cell line SH-SY5Y as a modell system to investigate the effect of Fe65 knock-down on APP processing. Our results showed that Fe65 knockdown did not have any effect on sAPPα secretion. However, decreased levels of C83 and C99 were observed, suggesting that Fe65 has a stabilizing effect on the C-terminal fragments. Furthermore, we investigated the effects of RA-induced neronal differentiation on Fe65 expression. We observed increased protein levels of Fe65 and an electrophoretic mobility shift due to increased phosphorylation of Fe65. O-GlcNAcylation is a dynamic posttranslational modification regulated by O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT) and O-GlcNAcase (OGA). To investigate the effect of O-GlcNAcylation on APP trafficking and processing, SH-SY5Y cells were treated with PUGNAc, an OGA inhibitor, to increase the cellular levels of O-GlcNAc. The results revealed that cell surface localization of mature APP was significantly enhanced without any affect on the total levels of APP. We further show evidence that ADAM10 is O-GlcNAcylated and that the effect of O-GlcNAcylation on APP processing is neuron-specific.