Interestingly, because the RHDS sequence is contained within the N terminus of Aβ, similar cell adhesion-promoting properties have also been attributed to the Aβ peptide itself.
γ-Secretase cleaves at multiple sites within the transmembrane domain of APP, generating Aβ peptides ranging in length from 38 to 43 residues (4).
As mentioned above, γ-secretase processing of APP also releases AICD (Fig. 1).
Finally, a recent study reported a surprising twist, viz. that APP in conjunction with TAG1, a molecule found in the outer plasma membrane, and presenilins act to suppress neurogenesis.
Because, as mentioned above, APPs is constitutively released from cells following α-secretase cleavage, these find- ings indicated that APP has autocrine and paracrine functions in growth regulation.
The N-terminal heparin-binding domain of APP (res- idues 28–123) upstream from the RERMS sequence also stim- ulates neurite outgrowth and promotes synaptogenesis.
An RHDS motif near the extralumenal por- tion of APP or at the C terminus of APPs lying within the Aβ region appears to promote cell adhesion.
Furthermore, APP also regulates the presynaptic expression and activity of the high affinity choline transporter.
Activation of protein kinase C increases APPs α-secretion by mechanisms involving the formation and release of secretory vesicles from the TGN, thus enhancing APP (and possiblyα-secretase) trafficking to the cell surface.
Several zinc metallo proteinases such asTACE/ADAM17, ADAM9, ADAM10 and MDC-9 and the aspartyl protease BACE2 can cleave APP at the α-secretase site, located within the Aβ domain between Lys 16 and Leu 17 , essentially precluding the generation of intact Aβ(1).
Overexpression of Mint1, Mint2, or Fe65 causes reduction in Aβ generation and deposition in the brains of transgenic mice, strongly suggesting a physiological role for these adaptors in regulating APP processing in the nervous tis- sue (17).
Moreover, Fe65 stabilizes the highly labile AICD, which may serve as a regulatory step in modulating the physiological func- tion of AICD (see below).
More than 25 mutations in APP have been identified that are causative of the hereditary form of familial AD and a related condition of hereditary cerebral amyloid angiopathy.
BACE1 generates the N terminus of Aβ.In addition,BACE1 can also cleave within the Aβ domain between Tyr 10 and Glu 11.
Finally, the type I transmembrane protein SorLA/LR11 (a member of the VPS10p domain receptor fam- ily), which functionally interacts with cytosolic adaptors GGA and PACS-1, attenuates Aβ production by acting as a Golgi/ TGN retention factor (22).
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If you find BEL Commons useful in your work, please consider citing: Hoyt, C. T., Domingo-Fernández, D., & Hofmann-Apitius, M. (2018). BEL Commons: an environment for exploration and analysis of networks encoded in Biological Expression Language. Database, 2018(3), 1–11.