Phagocytosis of Apoptotic Cells Is Specifically Upregulated in ApoE4 Expressing Microglia in vitro

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by intracellular tau aggregates and extracellular deposition of amyloid-β (Aβ). The major genetic risk factor to develop AD is the Apolipoprotein E isoform 4 (ApoE4). ApoE4 may directly affect Aβ pathology, yet the exact role of ApoE4 in the progression of AD remains unclear. Although astrocytes are the main source of ApoE in brain tissue, other cell types might contribute to ApoE isotype-dependent effects. While ApoE expression does not play a relevant role in homeostatic microglia, we and others could recently show that ApoE expression is significant upregulated in disease-associated microglia including AD-mouse models and human AD. ApoE has been supposed to have an anti-inflammatory effect, with ApoE4 being less effective than ApoE3. However, ApoE-isotype specific effects on microglia function in disease have not been thoroughly investigated to date. In contrast to this, the role of ApoE2, the third most common major ApoE isoform, in neurodegeneration has not been characterized in detail, but it has been shown to delay the onset of disease in familial AD. To elucidate the differential roles of the three-major human ApoE isoforms on microglia function we each expressed the human ApoE isoforms in murine N9 microglia cells. We could show that ApoE4 specifically influences actin cytoskeleton rearrangement and morphology. In migration assays, ApoE4 significantly promotes cell motility. To quantify phagocytosis by microglia we established an uptake assay based on imaging flow cytometry. Although expression of ApoE4 led to significantly reduced uptake of Aβ in contrast to the other isoforms, we could show that ApoE4 specifically increased phagocytosis of apoptotic neuronal cells. Our findings show that ApoE4 intrinsically affects microglia physiology by upregulating motility and phagocytic behavior in vitro and may therefore specifically contribute to microglia dysregulation in AD

Immune Activation in Amyloid-β-Related Angiitis Correlates with Decreased Parenchymal Amyloid-β Plaque Load

Background: Primary angiitis of the central nervous system (PACNS) is a rare but serious condition. A fraction of patients suffering from PACNS concurrently exhibit pronounced cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) which is characterized by deposits of amyloid-β (Aβ) in and around the walls of small and medium-sized arteries of the brain. PACNS with CAA has been identified as a distinct disease entity, termed Aβ-related angiitis (ABRA). Evidence points to an immune reaction to vessel wall Aβ as the trigger of vasculitis. Objective: To investigate whether the inflammatory response to Aβ has (1) any effect on the status of immune activation in the brain parenchyma and (2) leads to clearance of Aβ from brain parenchyma. Methods: We studied immune activation and Aβ load by quantitative immunohistochemical analysis in brain parenchyma adjacent to affected vessels in 11 ABRA patients and 10 matched CAA controls. Results: ABRA patients showed significantly increased immune activation and decreased Aβ loads in the brain parenchyma adjacent to affected vessels. Conclusion: Our results are in line with the hypothesis of ABRA being the result of an excessive immune response to Aβ and show that this can lead to enhanced clearance of Aβ from the brain parenchyma by immune-mediated mechanisms

ER stress induced immunopathology involving complement in CADASIL: implications for therapeutics

\ua9 2023, The Author(s). Cerebral autosomal-dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) is caused by NOTCH3 mutations. Typical CADASIL is characterised by subcortical ischemic strokes due to severe arteriopathy and fibrotic thickening of small arteries. Arteriolar vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) are the key target in CADASIL, but the potential mechanisms involved in their degeneration are still unclear. Focusing on cerebral microvessels in the frontal and anterior temporal lobes and the basal ganglia, we used advanced proteomic and immunohistochemical methods to explore the extent of inflammatory and immune responses in CADASIL subjects compared to similar age normal and other disease controls. There was variable loss of VSMC in medial layers of arteries in white matter as well as the cortex, that could not be distinguished whether NOTCH3 mutations were in the epidermal growth factor (EGFr) domains 1–6 or EGFr7-34. Proteomics of isolated cerebral microvessels showed alterations in several proteins, many associated with endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress including heat shock proteins. Cerebral vessels with sparsely populated VSMCs also attracted robust accrual of perivascular microglia/macrophages in order CD45+ > CD163+ > CD68+cells, with > 60% of vessel walls exhibiting intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) immunoreactivity. Functional VSMC cultures bearing the NOTCH3 Arg133Cys mutation showed increased gene expression of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin 6 and ICAM-1 by 16- and 50-fold, respectively. We further found evidence for activation of the alternative pathway of complement. Immunolocalisation of complement Factor B, C3d and C5-9 terminal complex but not C1q was apparent in ~ 70% of cerebral vessels. Increased complement expression was corroborated in > 70% of cultured VSMCs bearing the Arg133Cys mutation independent of N3ECD immunoreactivity. Our observations suggest that ER stress and other cellular features associated with arteriolar VSMC damage instigate robust localized inflammatory and immune responses in CADASIL. Our study has important implications for immunomodulation approaches to counter the characteristic arteriopathy of CADASIL

Evidence of beta amyloid independent small vessel disease in familial Alzheimer\u27s disease

\ua9 2022 The Authors. Brain Pathology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Society of Neuropathology. We studied small vessel disease (SVD) pathology in Familial Alzheimer\u27s disease (FAD) subjects carrying the presenilin 1 (PSEN1) p.Glu280Ala mutation in comparison to those with sporadic Alzheimer\u27s disease (SAD) as a positive control for Alzheimer\u27s pathology and Cerebral Autosomal Dominant Arteriopathy with Subcortical Infarcts and Leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) bearing different NOTCH3 mutations, as positive controls for SVD pathology. Upon magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in life, some FAD showed mild white matter hyperintensities and no further radiologic evidence of SVD. In post-mortem studies, total SVD pathology in cortical areas and basal ganglia was similar in PSEN1 FAD and CADASIL subjects, except for the feature of arteriosclerosis which was higher in CADASIL subjects than in PSEN1 FAD subjects. Further only a few SAD subjects showed a similar degree of SVD pathology as observed in CADASIL. Furthermore, we found significantly enlarged perivascular spaces in vessels devoid of cerebral amyloid angiopathy in FAD compared with SAD and CADASIL subjects. As expected, there was greater fibrinogen-positive perivascular reactivity in CADASIL but similar reactivity in PSEN1 FAD and SAD groups. Fibrinogen immunoreactivity correlated with onset age in the PSEN1 FAD cases, suggesting increased vascular permeability may contribute to cognitive decline. Additionally, we found reduced perivascular expression of PDGFRβ AQP4 in microvessels with enlarged PVS in PSEN1 FAD cases. We demonstrate that there is Aβ-independent SVD pathology in PSEN1 FAD, that was marginally lower than that in CADASIL subjects although not evident by MRI. These observations suggest presence of covert SVD even in PSEN1, contributing to disease progression. As is the case in SAD, these consequences may be preventable by early recognition and actively controlling vascular disease risk, even in familial forms of dementia

Familial Alzheimer's disease-associated presenilin-1 alters cerebellar activity and calcium homeostasis

Familial Alzheimer's disease (FAD) is characterized by autosomal dominant heritability and early disease onset. Mutations in the gene encoding presenilin-1 (PS1) are found in approximately 80% of cases of FAD, with some of these patients presenting cerebellar damage with amyloid plaques and ataxia with unclear pathophysiology. A Colombian kindred carrying the PS1-E280A mutation is the largest known cohort of PS1-FAD patients. Here, we investigated PS1-E280A-associated cerebellar dysfunction and found that it occurs early in PS1-E208A carriers, while cerebellar signs are highly prevalent in patients with dementia. Postmortem analysis of cerebella of PS1-E280A carrier revealed greater Purkinje cell (PC) loss and more abnormal mitochondria compared with controls. In PS1-E280A tissue, ER/mitochondria tethering was impaired, Ca2+ channels IP3Rs and CACNA1A were downregulated, and Ca2+-dependent mitochondrial transport proteins MIRO1 and KIF5C were reduced. Accordingly, expression of PS1-E280A in a neuronal cell line altered ER/mitochondria tethering and transport compared with that in cells expressing wild-type PS1. In a murine model of PS1-FAD, animals exhibited mild ataxia and reduced PC simple spike activity prior to cerebellar β-amyloid deposition. Our data suggest that impaired calcium homeostasis and mitochondrial dysfunction in PS1-FAD PCs reduces their activity and contributes to motor coordination deficits prior to Aβ aggregation and dementia. We propose that PS1-E280A affects both Ca2+ homeostasis and Aβ precursor processing, leading to FAD and neurodegeneration

Distinct patterns of APP processing in the CNS in autosomal-dominant and sporadic Alzheimer disease

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00401-012-1062-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Amyloid polymorphisms constitute distinct clouds of conformational variants in different etiological subtypes of Alzheimer's disease

The molecular architecture of amyloids formed in vivo can be interrogated using luminescent conjugated oligothiophenes (LCOs), a unique class of amyloid dyes. When bound to amyloid, LCOs yield fluorescence emission spectra that reflect the 3D structure of the protein aggregates. Given that synthetic amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) has been shown to adopt distinct structural conformations with different biological activities, we asked whether Aβ can assume structurally and functionally distinct conformations within the brain. To this end, we analyzed the LCO-stained cores of β-amyloid plaques in postmortem tissue sections from frontal, temporal, and occipital neocortices in 40 cases of familial Alzheimer's disease (AD) or sporadic (idiopathic) AD (sAD). The spectral attributes of LCO-bound plaques varied markedly in the brain, but the mean spectral properties of the amyloid cores were generally similar in all three cortical regions of individual patients. Remarkably, the LCO amyloid spectra differed significantly among some of the familial and sAD subtypes, and between typical patients with sAD and those with posterior cortical atrophy AD. Neither the amount of Aβ nor its protease resistance correlated with LCO spectral properties. LCO spectral amyloid phenotypes could be partially conveyed to Aβ plaques induced by experimental transmission in a mouse model. These findings indicate that polymorphic Aβ-amyloid deposits within the brain cluster as clouds of conformational variants in different AD cases. Heterogeneity in the molecular architecture of pathogenic Aβ among individuals and in etiologically distinct subtypes of AD justifies further studies to assess putative links between Aβ conformation and clinical phenotype

ER stress induced immunopathology involving complement in CADASIL: implications for therapeutics.

Cerebral autosomal-dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) is caused by NOTCH3 mutations. Typical CADASIL is characterised by subcortical ischemic strokes due to severe arteriopathy and fibrotic thickening of small arteries. Arteriolar vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) are the key target in CADASIL, but the potential mechanisms involved in their degeneration are still unclear. Focusing on cerebral microvessels in the frontal and anterior temporal lobes and the basal ganglia, we used advanced proteomic and immunohistochemical methods to explore the extent of inflammatory and immune responses in CADASIL subjects compared to similar age normal and other disease controls. There was variable loss of VSMC in medial layers of arteries in white matter as well as the cortex, that could not be distinguished whether NOTCH3 mutations were in the epidermal growth factor (EGFr) domains 1-6 or EGFr7-34. Proteomics of isolated cerebral microvessels showed alterations in several proteins, many associated with endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress including heat shock proteins. Cerebral vessels with sparsely populated VSMCs also attracted robust accrual of perivascular microglia/macrophages in order CD45+ > CD163+ > CD68+cells, with > 60% of vessel walls exhibiting intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) immunoreactivity. Functional VSMC cultures bearing the NOTCH3 Arg133Cys mutation showed increased gene expression of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin 6 and ICAM-1 by 16- and 50-fold, respectively. We further found evidence for activation of the alternative pathway of complement. Immunolocalisation of complement Factor B, C3d and C5-9 terminal complex but not C1q was apparent in ~ 70% of cerebral vessels. Increased complement expression was corroborated in > 70% of cultured VSMCs bearing the Arg133Cys mutation independent of N3ECD immunoreactivity. Our observations suggest that ER stress and other cellular features associated with arteriolar VSMC damage instigate robust localized inflammatory and immune responses in CADASIL. Our study has important implications for immunomodulation approaches to counter the characteristic arteriopathy of CADASIL

APOE3 Christchurch modulates β-catenin/Wnt signaling in iPS cell-derived cerebral organoids from Alzheimer’s cases

A patient with the PSEN1 E280A mutation and homozygous for APOE3 Christchurch (APOE3Ch) displayed extreme resistance to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) cognitive decline and tauopathy, despite having a high amyloid burden. To further investigate the differences in biological processes attributed to APOE3Ch, we generated induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell-derived cerebral organoids from this resistant case and a non-protected control, using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to modulate APOE3Ch expression. In the APOE3Ch cerebral organoids, we observed a protective pattern from early tau phosphorylation. ScRNA sequencing revealed regulation of Cadherin and Wnt signaling pathways by APOE3Ch, with immunostaining indicating elevated β-catenin protein levels. Further in vitro reporter assays unexpectedly demonstrated that ApoE3Ch functions as a Wnt3a signaling enhancer. This work uncovered a neomorphic molecular mechanism of protection of ApoE3 Christchurch, which may serve as the foundation for the future development of protected case-inspired therapeutics targeting AD and tauopathies