TRANSGENIC MODELS TO SUDY ALZHEIMERS DISEASE

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DESCRIPTION Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized clinically by dementia and neuropathologically by amyloid plaques, amyloid angiopathy, dystrophic neurites, NFT's, gliosis, and loss of neuronal subpopulations and synapses. Increasing evidence suggests that the AB peptide derived from APP plays a central role in AD. The goals of this project are to characterize neuronal and glial products that contribute to amyloidogenesis and neurodegeneration and identify cortical AD-related pathogenetic pathways that could be targeted by therapeutic interventions. Mice expressing a PDGF-promoter driven, alternatively spliced hAPP minigene, (PDGF-APP mice) develop several aspects of AD neuropathology. This proposal is to utilize this and related models to study cerebral amyloidogenesis and amyloid-induced neurodegeneration in vivo with the following aims: 1) Determine what factors influence AB production and B-amyloid deposition in vivo.; 2) Determine whether development of neuronal/synaptic degeneration in PDGF-hAPP mice depends on B-amyloid formation; 3) Determine whether B-amyloid in the brain results in aberrant induction of neuronal apoptosis and whether this process involves excitotoxic mechanisms.