Frame-shifted amyloid precursor protein found in Alzheimer's disease and Down's syndrome increases levels of secreted amyloid β40

Frame-shifted amyloid precursor protein (APP+1), which has a truncated out-of-frame C-terminus, accumulates in the neuropathological hallmarks of patients with Alzheimer's disease pathology. To study a possible involvement of APP+1 in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease, we expressed APP695 and APP+1 in the HEK293 cell-line and studied whether the processing of APP695 was affected. APP+1 is a secretory protein, but high expression of APP695 and APP+1 results in the formation of intracellular aggregate-like structures containing both proteins and Fe65, an adaptor protein that interacts with APP695. APP+1 is shown to interact with APP695, suggesting that these structures consist of functional protein complexes. Such an interaction can also be anticipated in post-mortem brains of young Down's syndrome patients without any sign of neuropathology. Here we observed APP+1 immunoreactivity in beaded fibres. Additional support for functional consequences on the processing of APP695 comes from a 1.4-fold increase in levels of secreted amyloid β40 in cells co-expressing APP695 and APP+1, although APP+1 itself does not contain the amyloid β sequence. Taken together, these data show that co-expression of APP695 and APP+1 affects the processing of APP695 in a pro-amyloidogenic way and this could gradually contribute to Alzheimer's disease pathology, as has been implicated in Down's syndrome patients.