Amyloid-β Derived from the Brain of the Alzheimer's Disease Transgenic Mouse Is Resistant to Proteolytic Digestion Due to Its Conformation.

The main pathological feature of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the formation of abundant amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques in the human brain. Studies have reported that Aβ from the AD brain is resistant to proteolytic digestion, which may explain why Aβ cannot be readily eliminated from this organ. However, there are only a few studies that address this important question. We used the AD transgenic mouse (APP/PS1) model to show that Aβ derived from the brain of the old mouse is resistant to proteolytic digestion. This was in contrast to the proteinase K-sensitive human Aβ peptide, whose amino acid sequence was identical to that of AD mouse-derived Aβ but whose conformation was different (i.e., the native protein, but not the peptide, folded into a three-dimensional conformation). To address this question, we denatured AD mouse-derived Aβ with urea and found that Aβ became proteinase K-sensitive. This phenomenon was concentration-dependent, and these results were confirmed by another protein denaturant, guanidinium hydrochloride. We recovered the conformation of the denatured AD mouse-derived Aβ by eliminating urea and adding the human Aβ peptide, and we found that human Aβ was converted to the proteinase K-resistant form in the presence of partially undenatured AD mouse-derived Aβ. However, upon the addition of the rat Aβ peptide, there were no Aβ proteinase K-resistant fragments. Our results show that the resistance of AD mouse-derived Aβ to proteolytic digestion is dependent on the three-dimensional conformation of Aβ. In summary, this study provides new insights on why Aβ plaques fail to be degraded in the human brain.