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  • br Conflicts of interests br Acknowledgements We thank Drs

    2021-10-02


    Conflicts of interests
    Acknowledgements We thank Drs. T. Tomita and T. Iwatsubo (Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan) for anti-presenilin 1-CTF antiserum, Dr. A. Takashima (Gakushuin University, Tokyo, Japan) for anti-Pen-2 antiserum and the laboratory members for helpful comments and discussion. M.M. is the recipient of Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Scholarship, Japan. This work was supported in part by the MEXT Grant in Aid for Scientific Research (16K07044) (to S.F.), the Strategic Research Program for Brain Sciences from Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) (to S.F.), the Translational Research Program; Strategic Promotion for practical application of Inovative medical Technology (TR-SPRINT) from AMED (to S.F.), the Izumi Science and Technology Foundation (to S.F.), the Takeda Science Foundation (to S.F.), and the Naito Foundation (to S.F.).
    Introduction The γ-secretase is a membrane-embedded protease that cleaves single transmembrane helical domains of various integral membrane proteins. Of particular interest is the sequential cleavage of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) into variable length peptides, commonly named amyloid β (Aβ). This cleavage occurs in two steps and two proteases are involved: β-secretase first removes the ectodomain of APP and further the γ-secretase cleaves the remaining C-terminal fragment within its transmembrane (TM) domain delivering a mixture of 37–49 amino Merimepodib long Aβ peptides. In particular, longer Aβ peptides (i.e., Aβ42) are linked closely to Alzheimer's disease (AD) due to their propensity to aggregate and form extracellular senile plaques in the brain [1]. Alternatively, cell surface APP can be cleaved by α-secretase to release the non-amyloidogenic soluble APPα, which was observed to be neuroprotective [2]. γ-secretase is a 230 kDa complex with 20 TMs structured in four components: presenilin (PS1), presenilin enhancer 2 (PEN-2), nicastrin (NCT), and anterior pharynx-defective 1 (APH-1) (Fig. 1) [3]. The full-length PS is inactive and association with Pen-2 facilitates an autocatalytic cleavage of presenilin between TM6 and TM7, producing two fragments known as N-terminal fragment (NTF) and C-terminal fragment (CTF) [4], [5], [6]. Subsequently, NTF and CTF bind to form stable and active nine TMs PS1 heterodimer [3], which metamorphosis is actually the PS1 active catalytic form. At the interface between the NTF and CTF of presenilin is located the catalytic center composed by residues D257 and D385, located on TM6 and TM7 helices, which is excluded from the external surface of the enzyme. NCT is a 130 kDa type I TM protein that contains a large glycosylated ectodomain (ECD) and a single TM domain. Nicastrin is the scaffolding protein within the γ-secretase complex, and the ECD is proposed to act as substrate receptor. The other two γ-secretase components were initially identified through genetic screening in C. elegans[7], [8]. PEN-2 directly binds PS1 and is required for its autocatalytic maturation and protease activity. APH-1 contains seven TM domains and is indispensable for γ-secretase assembly. Moreover, several studies showed that these four components are cross-regulated and down-regulation or deficiency of one given component typically destabilizes the other altering the trafficking [9], [10]. During the past years, our knowledge on γ-secretase has largely increased. Residue level information on substrate docking to γ-secretase has been explored in previous biochemical experiments [11], [12], [13], [14] suggesting that several residues scattered across the TM domains of presenilin 1 (PS1) constitute an extended binding surface for the initial substrate binding. Advancements in cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) have resulted in high-resolution structures of γ-secretase. A 3.4 Å cryo-EM reported 2015 (PDB: 5A63) provides a view on the atomistic organization of all four domains of the human γ-secretase as well as the large ECD [3]. Despite the new insights from these studies, neither the mechanism of APP cleavage is fully understood nor a co-crystal structure of γ-secretase in complex with any of its substrates has been solved.