How problems with an Alzheimer’s protein can jam up traffic in the brain

Scientists have known for some time that a protein called presenilin plays a role in Alzheimer’s disease, and a new study reveals one intriguing way this happens.

It has to do with how materials travel up and down brain cells, which are also called neurons.

In an Oct. 8 paper in Human Molecular Genetics, University at Buffalo researchers report that presenilin works with an enzyme called GSK-3ß to control how fast materials — like proteins needed for cell survival — move through the cells.

“If you have too much presenilin or too little, it disrupts the activity of GSK-3ß, and the transport of cargo along neurons becomes uncoordinated,” says lead researcher Shermali Gunawardena, PhD, an assistant professor of biological sciences at UB. “This can lead to dangerous blockages.”

More than 150 mutations of presenilin have been found in Alzheimer’s patients, and scientists have previously shown that the protein, when defective, can cause neuronal blockages by snipping another protein into pieces that accumulate in brain cells.

But this well-known mechanism isn’t the only way presenilin fuels disease, as Gunawardena’s new study shows.

“Our work elucidates how problems with presenilin could contribute to early problems observed in Alzheimer’s disease,” she says. “It highlights a potential pathway for early intervention through drugs — prior to neuronal loss and clinical manifestations of disease.”

The study suggests that presenilin activates GSK-3ß. This is an important finding because the enzyme helps control the speed at which tiny, organic bubbles called vesicles ferry cargo along neuronal highways. (You can think of vesicles as trucks, each powered by little molecular motors called dyneins and kinesins.)

When researchers lowered the amount of presenilin in the neurons of fruit fly larvae, less GSK-3ß became activated and vesicles began speeding along cells in an uncontrolled manner.

Decreasing levels of both presenilin and GSK-3ß at once made things worse, resulting in “traffic jams” as the bubbles got stuck in neurons.

“Both GSK-3ß and presenilin have been shown to be involved in Alzheimer’s disease, but how they are involved has not always been clear,” Gunawardena says. “Our research provides new insight into this question.”

Gunawardena proposes that GSK-3ß — short for glycogen synthase kinase-3beta — acts as an “on switch” for dynein and kynesin motors, telling them when to latch onto vesicles.

Dyneins carry vesicles toward the cell nucleus, while kinesins move in the other direction, toward the periphery of the cell. When all is well and GSK-3ß levels are normal, both types of motors bind to vesicles in carefully calibrated numbers, resulting in smooth traffic flow along neurons.

That’s why it’s so dangerous when GSK-3ß levels are off-kilter, she says.

When GSK-3ß levels are high, too many motors attach to the vesicles, leading to slow movement as motor activity loses coordination. Low GSK-3ß levels appear to have the opposite effect, causing fast, uncontrolled movement as too few motors latch onto vesicles.

Both scenarios — too much GSK-3ß or too little — can result in neuronal blockages.

Preventing ‘traffic jams’ in brain cells

Imagine if you could open up your brain and look inside.

What you would see is a network of nerve cells called neurons, each with its own internal highway system for transporting essential materials between different parts of the cell.

When this biological machinery is operating smoothly, tiny motor proteins ferry precious cargo up and down each neuron along thread-like roadways called microtubule tracks. Brain cells are able to receive information, make internal repairs and send instructions to the body, telling the fingers to flex or the toes to curl.

But when the neuron gets blocked, this delicate harmony deteriorates. One result: diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Understanding such blockages and how traffic should flow normally in healthy brain cells could offer hope to people with neurodegenerative diseases.

Toward that end, a research team led by University at Buffalo biologist Shermali Gunawardena, PhD, has shown that the protein presenilin plays an important role in controlling neuronal traffic on microtubule highways, a novel function that previously was unknown.

The research results were published online on May 24 in the journal Human Molecular Genetics. Gunawardena’s co-authors are Ge Yang of Carnegie Mellon University and Lawrence S. B. Goldstein of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of California, San Diego.

Inside the nerves of fruit fly larvae, presenilin helped to control the speed at which molecular motors called kinesins and dyneins moved along neurons. When the scientists halved the amount of presenilin present in the highway system, the motors moved faster; they paused fewer times and their pauses were shorter.

Given this data, Gunawardena thinks that tweaking presenilin levels may be one way to free up traffic and prevent dangerous neuronal blockages in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

“Our major discovery is that presenilin has a novel role, which is to control the movement of motor proteins along neuronal highways,” said Gunawardena, an assistant professor of biological sciences. “If this regulation/control is lost, then things can go wrong. This is the first time a protein that functions as a controller of motors has been reported.

“In Alzheimer’s disease, transport defects occur well before symptoms, such as cell death and amyloid plaques, are seen in post-mortem brains,” she added. “As a result, developing therapeutics targeted to defects in neuronal transport would be a useful way to attack the problem early.”

The findings are particularly intriguing because scientists have known for several years that presenilin is involved in Alzheimer’s disease.

Presenilin rides along neuronal highways in tiny organic bubbles called vesicles that sit atop the kinesin and dynein motors, and also contain a second protein called the amyloid precursor protein (APP). Presenilin participates in cutting APP into pieces called amyloid beta, which build up to form amyloid plaques in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

Such buildups can lead to cell death by preventing the transport of essential materials—like proteins needed for cell repair—along neurons.

The findings of the new study mean that presenilin may contribute to Alzheimer’s disease in at least two ways: not just by cleaving APP, but also by regulating the speed of the molecular motors that carry APP along neuronal highways.

“More than 150 mutations in presenilin have been identified in Alzheimer’s disease,” Gunawardena said. “Thus, understanding its function is important to understanding what goes wrong in Alzheimer’s disease.”

To track the movement of the kinesins and dyneins, the team tagged their cargo with a yellow fluorescent protein. This enabled the scientists to view the molecular motors chugging along inside the neuron under a microscope in a living animal. A special computer program then analyzed the motors’ paths, revealing more details about the nature of their movement and how often they paused.