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Cognitive and emotional alterations in App knock-in mouse models of A? amyloidosis.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common cause of dementia, is characterized by the progressive deposition of amyloid-? (A?) peptides and neurofibrillary tangles. Mouse models of A? amyloidosis generated by knock-in (KI) of a humanized A? sequence provide distinct advantages over traditional transgenic models that rely on overexpression of amyloid precursor protein (APP). In App-KI mice, three familial AD-associated mutations were introduced into the endogenous mouse App locus to recapitulate A? pathology observed in AD: the Swedish (NL) mutation, which elevates total A? production; the Beyreuther/Iberian (F) mutation, which increases the A?42/A?40 ratio; and the Arctic (G) mutation, which promotes A? aggregation. AppNL-G-F mice harbor all three mutations and develop progressive A? amyloidosis and neuroinflammatory response in broader brain areas, whereas AppNL mice carrying only the Swedish mutation exhibit no overt AD-related pathological changes. To identify behavioral alterations associated with A? pathology, we assessed emotional and cognitive domains of AppNL-G-F and AppNL mice at different time points, using the elevated plus maze, contextual fear conditioning, and Barnes maze tasks. RESULTS:Assessments of emotional domains revealed that, in comparison with wild-type (WT) C57BL/6J mice, AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F mice exhibited anxiolytic-like behavior that was detectable from 6 months of age. By contrast, AppNL/NL mice exhibited anxiogenic-like behavior from 15 months of age. In the contextual fear conditioning task, both AppNL/NL and AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F mice exhibited intact learning and memory up to 15-18 months of age, whereas AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F mice exhibited hyper-reactivity to painful stimuli. In the Barnes maze task, AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F mice exhibited a subtle decline in spatial learning ability at 8 months of age, but retained normal memory functions. CONCLUSION:AppNL/NL and AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F mice exhibit behavioral changes associated with non-cognitive, emotional domains before the onset of definitive cognitive deficits. Our observations consistently indicate that AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F mice represent a model for preclinical AD. These mice are useful for the study of AD prevention rather than treatment after neurodegeneration.

SUBMITTER: Sakakibara Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6064053 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Cognitive and emotional alterations in App knock-in mouse models of Aβ amyloidosis.

Sakakibara Yasufumi Y Sekiya Michiko M Saito Takashi T Saido Takaomi C TC Iijima Koichi M KM

BMC neuroscience 20180728 1

<h4>Background</h4>Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common cause of dementia, is characterized by the progressive deposition of amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides and neurofibrillary tangles. Mouse models of Aβ amyloidosis generated by knock-in (KI) of a humanized Aβ sequence provide distinct advantages over traditional transgenic models that rely on overexpression of amyloid precursor protein (APP). In App-KI mice, three familial AD-associated mutations were introduced into the endogenous mouse App locu ...[more]

PMID: 30055565

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Knock-in (KI) mouse models of Alzheimer's disease (AD) that endogenously overproduce A? without non-physiological overexpression of amyloid precursor protein (APP) provide important insights into the pathogenic mechanisms of AD. Previously, we reported that AppNL-G-F mice, which harbor three familial AD mutations (Swedish, Beyreuther/Iberian, and Arctic) exhibited emotional alterations before the onset of definitive cognitive deficits. To determine whether these mice exhibit deficits in learning and memory at more advanced ages, we compared the Morris water maze performance of AppNL-G-F and AppNL mice, which harbor only the Swedish mutation, with that of wild-type (WT) C57BL/6J mice at the age of 24 months. To correlate cognitive deficits and neuroinflammation, we also examined A? plaque formation and reactive gliosis in these mice. RESULTS:In the Morris water maze, a spatial task, 24-month-old AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F mice exhibited significantly poorer spatial learning than WT mice during the hidden training sessions, but similarly to WT mice during the visible training sessions. Not surprisingly, AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F mice also exhibited spatial memory deficits both 1 and 7 days after the last training session. By contrast, 24-month-old AppNL/NL mice had intact spatial learning and memory relative to WT mice. Immunohistochemical analyses revealed that 24-month-old AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F mice developed massive A? plaques and reactive gliosis (microgliosis and astrocytosis) throughout the brain, including the cortex and hippocampus. By contrast, we observed no detectable brain pathology in AppNL/NL mice despite overproduction of human A?40 and A?42 in their brains. CONCLUSIONS:A? plaque formation, followed by sustained neuroinflammation, is necessary for the induction of definitive cognitive deficits in App-KI mouse models of AD. Our data also indicate that introduction of the Swedish mutation alone in endogenous APP is not sufficient to produce either AD-related brain pathology or cognitive deficits in mice.

Project description:Phospho-tau 217, phospho-tau 231 and phospho-tau 181 in cerebrospinal fluid and plasma are promising biomarkers for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. All these p-tau proteins are detected in neurofibrillary tangles in brains obtained post-mortem from Alzheimer's disease patients. However, increases in p-tau levels in cerebrospinal fluid and plasma during the preclinical stage of Alzheimer's disease correlate with amyloid-β burden and precede neurofibrillary tangles in brains, suggesting that these p-tau proteins are indicative of amyloid-β-mediated brain pathology. In addition, phospho-tau 217 has greater sensitivity than phospho-tau 181, though it is unclear whether each of these p-tau variants contributes to the same or a different type of neuropathology prior to neurofibrillary tangle formation. In this study, we evaluated the intracerebral localization of p-tau in App knock-in mice with amyloid-β plaques without neurofibrillary tangle pathology (AppNLGF ), in App knock-in mice with increased amyloid-β levels without amyloid-β plaques (AppNL ) and in wild-type mice. Immunohistochemical analysis showed that phospho-tau 217 and phospho-tau 231 were detected only in AppNLGF mice as punctate structures around amyloid-β plaques, overlapping with the tau pathology marker, AT8 epitope phospho-tau 202/205/208. Moreover, phospho-tau 217 and phospho-tau 202/205/208 colocalized with the postsynaptic marker PSD95 and with a major tau kinase active, GSK3β. In contrast and similar to total tau, phospho-tau 181 signals were readily detectable as fibre structures in wild-type and AppNL mice and colocalized with an axonal marker neurofilament light chain. In AppNLGF mice, these phospho-tau 181-positive structures were disrupted around amyloid-β plaques and only partially overlapped with phospho-tau 217. These results indicate that phospho-tau 217, phospho-tau 231 and a part of phospho-tau 181 signals are markers of postsynaptic pathology around amyloid-β plaques, with phospho-tau 181 also being a marker of axonal abnormality caused by amyloid-β burden in brains.

Dataset Information

Cognitive and emotional alterations in App knock-in mouse models of A? amyloidosis.

Publications

Cognitive and emotional alterations in App knock-in mouse models of Aβ amyloidosis.

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