Publication
Title
Reduced secreted clusterin as a mechanism for Alzheimer-associated CLU mutations
Author
Abstract
Background The clusterin (CLU) gene has been identified as an important risk locus for Alzheimers disease (AD). Although the actual riskincreasing polymorphisms at this locus remain to be identified, we previously observed an increased frequency of rare non-synonymous mutations and small insertion-deletions of CLU in AD patients, which specifically clustered in the β-chain domain of CLU. Nonetheless the pathogenic nature of these variants remained unclear. Here we report a novel non-synonymous CLU mutation (p.I360N) in a Belgian Alzheimer patient and have explored the pathogenic nature of this and 10 additional CLU mutations on protein localization and secretion in vitro using immunocytochemistry, immunodetection and ELISAs. Results Three patient-specific CLU mutations in the β-chain (p.I303NfsX13, p.R338W and p.I360N) caused an alteration of the subcellular CLU localization and diminished CLU transport through the secretory pathway, indicative of possible degradation mechanisms. For these mutations, significantly reduced CLU intensity was observed in the Golgi while almost all CLU protein was exclusively present in the endoplasmic reticulum. This was further confirmed by diminished CLU secretion in HEK293T and HEK293 FLp-In cell lines. Conclusions Our data lend further support to the contribution of rare coding CLU mutations in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. Functional analyses suggest reduced secretion of the CLU protein as the mode of action for three of the examined CLU mutations. One of those is a frameshift mutation leading to a loss of secreted protein, and the other two mutations are amino acid substitutions in the disulfide bridge region, possibly interfering with heterodimerization of the α- and β-chain of CLU.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Molecular neurodegeneration. - London
Publication
London : 2015
ISSN
1750-1326
DOI
10.1186/S13024-015-0024-9
Volume/pages
10 (2015) , 12 p.
Article Reference
30
ISI
000357918600001
Pubmed ID
26179372
Medium
E-only publicatie
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
VIB-Systems biology of pathways involving brain ageing (AgedBrainSYSBIO).
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 03.09.2015
Last edited 04.03.2024
To cite this reference