Autolysosomal acidification failure as a primary driver of Alzheimer disease pathogenesis

Abstract

Genetic evidence has increasingly linked lysosome dysfunction to an impaired autophagy-lysosomal pathway (ALP) flux in Alzheimer disease (AD) although the relationship of these abnormalities to other pathologies is unclear. In our recent investigation on the origin of impaired autophagic flux in AD, we established the critical early role of defective lysosomes in five mouse AD models. To assess in vivo alterations of autophagy and ALP vesicle acidification, we expressed eGFP-mRFP-LC3 specifically in neurons. We discovered that autophagy dysfunction in these models arises from exceptionally early failure of autolysosome/lysosome acidification, which then drives downstream AD pathogenesis. Extreme autophagic stress in compromised but still intact neurons causes autophagic vacuoles (AVs) containing toxic APP metabolites, Aβ/β-CTFs, to pack into huge blebs and protrude from the perikaryon membrane. Most notably, AVs also coalesce with ER tubules and yield fibrillar β-amyloid within these tubules. Collectively, amyloid immunoreactivity within these intact neurons assumes the appearance of amyloid-plaques, and indeed, their eventual death transforms them into extracellular plaque lesions. Quantitative analysis confirms that neurons undergoing this transformation are the principal source of β-amyloid-plaques in APP-AD models. These findings prompt reconsideration of the conventionally accepted sequence of events in plaque formation and may help explain the inefficacy of Aβ/amyloid vaccine therapies.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; Amyloid plaque; Autophagy; Aβ/APP-βCTF; Perikaryal blebbing; lysosome acidification.