Journal of Biological Chemistry
Volume 291, Issue 5, 29 January 2016, Pages 2067-2079
Journal home page for Journal of Biological Chemistry

Neurobiology
Deficiency of Neuronal p38α MAPK Attenuates Amyloid Pathology in Alzheimer Disease Mouse and Cell Models through Facilitating Lysosomal Degradation of BACE1*

https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M115.695916Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Abstract

Amyloid β (Aβ) damages neurons and triggers microglial inflammatory activation in the Alzheimer disease (AD) brain. BACE1 is the primary enzyme in Aβ generation. Neuroinflammation potentially up-regulates BACE1 expression and increases Aβ production. In Alzheimer amyloid precursor protein-transgenic mice and SH-SY5Y cell models, we specifically knocked out or knocked down gene expression of mapk14, which encodes p38α MAPK, a kinase sensitive to inflammatory and oxidative stimuli. Using immunological and biochemical methods, we observed that reduction of p38α MAPK expression facilitated the lysosomal degradation of BACE1, decreased BACE1 protein and activity, and subsequently attenuated Aβ generation in the AD mouse brain. Inhibition of p38α MAPK also enhanced autophagy. Blocking autophagy by treating cells with 3-methyladenine or overexpressing dominant-negative ATG5 abolished the deficiency of the p38α MAPK-induced BACE1 protein reduction in cultured cells. Thus, our study demonstrates that p38α MAPK plays a critical role in the regulation of BACE1 degradation and Aβ generation in AD pathogenesis.

Alzheimer disease
amyloid-β (Aβ)
autophagy
β-secretase 1 (BACE1)
lysosome
p38 MAPK

Cited by (0)

*

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Grant LI1725/2-1 (to Y. L.), Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung 2012_A247 (to Y. L. and K. F.), and a Prof. Dr. Peter Theiss Wissenschaftspreis 2015 grant (to X. L.). The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest with the contents of this article.