CONFERENCE COVERAGE 1999-11-29 Conference Coverage Toward a neurofibrillary degeneration animal model, Michael Vitek's group (317.1) reported on their tau knockouts. Homozygous mice demonstrated the lack of tau at both mRNA and protein levels. Embryos (-/-) were smaller than wt an
RESEARCH NEWS 1999-11-22 Research News Ten years after a fetal cell transplant, a Parkinson's patient's graft is still delivering dopamine to postsynaptic cells, according to a study appearing in the December issue of Nature Neuroscience. This unprecedented in vivo conf
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 1999-11-16 Conference Coverage Dean Hartley (12.5) presented data on the deleterious effects of "protofibrillar" Aβ on neurons. Several other groups have reported that amyloid protofibrils of one sort of another are toxic to neurons (e.g., Oda, Aksenova, R
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 1999-11-12 Conference Coverage Irizarry and collaborators (626.5) provided intriguing new results from transgenic mouse lines expressing human APP (the PDAPP mice) in the presence or absence of endogenous mouse ApoE. The PDAPP mice lacking ApoE have previously been
RESEARCH NEWS 1999-11-03 Research News A report in the current Nature Cell Biology describes a mechanism by which presenilin-1 (PS-1) mutations can interfere with protein folding. Kazunori Imaizumi of Osaka University and colleagues suggest that this process underlies neurodegene
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 1999-11-03 Conference Coverage Hashimoto, Masliah and colleagues (27.14) reported that cytochrome C stimulates α-synuclein aggregration in vitro and that cytochrome C can be observed in Lewy bodies, in postmortem brain tissue. Whether cytochrome C actually plays a r
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 1999-11-01 Conference Coverage Research on presenilins presented at this year's meeting centered around two major questions: 1) What is the role of presenilins in Aβ production and APP processing, and 2) what are the other biological actions of presenilins? A m
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 1999-10-26 Conference Coverage In the relatively short time allotted, Dale Schenk (519.5) managed to describe most of the data from his group’s recent Nature paper (Nature 1999;400:173-177), and a little more. Schenk demonstrated that Aβ immunization of young (six-w
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 1999-10-26 Conference Coverage Chronic mucosal administration of certain proteins is known to decrease organ-specific autoimmune processes in several autoimmune models, including those affecting the CNS. In AD, local inflammatory responses frequently occur in the vi
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 1999-10-25 Conference Coverage Using exquisite human primary cortical cultures containing neurons, astrocytes, and microglia, Nadeau (319.1) demonstrated that addition of VLDLs or HDLs increased media levels of both Aβ40 and Aβ42. Moreover, addition of ApoE3, Apo4 o
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 1999-10-25 Conference Coverage Using primary hippocampal neurons transfected with APP by means of the Semliki-forest-virus expression system Christine Bergmann (319.2) demonstrated that lovastatin (which inhibits de novo cholesterol synthesis) and methyl-b-cyclodext
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 1999-10-25 Conference Coverage Until very recently, Aβ accumulation and aggregation were thought to be exclusively extracellular phenomena. However, a number of abstracts presented at this meeting (see 120.10 and 720.10) suggest that this notion must be revisited. G
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 1999-10-25 Conference Coverage Kawarabayashi (319.10) presented compelling data for a time-dependent accumulation of Aβ in the detergent-insoluble glycolipid enriched membrane domains (DIGs) of Tg2576 mouse brain. He also showed that Aβ accumulated in DIGs from huma
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 1999-10-25 Conference Coverage In an exhaustive study, Iwata (240.1) presented evidence that the trans Golgi network was the major site of Aβ42 production in both neural and non-neural cells. Cos-1 and N2a cells were transfected with C100 bearing retention signals f
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 1999-10-25 Conference Coverage The mechanisms of regulated α-secretase cleavage were thoroughly examined in two excellent companion posters from Virginia Lee’s lab (240.2, 240.3). The authors demonstrated that TNFalpha converting enzyme (TACE) knockout mice show red