Early-life stress elicits peripheral and brain immune activation differently in wild type and 5xFAD mice in a sex-specific manner.

BACKGROUND: The risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) is modulated by genetic and environmental factors. Early-life stress (ELS) exposure during critical periods of brain development can impact later brain function and health, including increasing the risk of developing AD. Microglial dysfunction and neuroinflammation have been implicated as playing a role in AD pathology and may be modulated by ELS. To complicate matters further, sex-specific effects have been noted in response to ELS and in the incidence and progression of AD. METHODS: Here, we subjected male and female mice with either a wild type or 5xFAD familial AD-model background to maternal separation (MS) from postnatal day 2 to 14 to induce ELS. RESULTS: We detected hippocampal neuroinflammatory alterations already at postnatal day 15. By 4 months of age, MS mice presented increased immobility time in the forced swim test and a lower discrimination index in the novel object recognition memory test compared to controls. We found altered Bdnf and Arc expression in the hippocampus and increased microglial activation in the prefrontal cortex due to MS in a sex-dependent manner. In 5xFAD mice specifically, MS exacerbated amyloid-beta deposition, particularly in females. In the periphery, the immune cell population was altered by MS exposure. CONCLUSION: Overall, our results demonstrate that MS has both short- and long-term effects on brain regions related to memory and on the inflammatory system, both in the brain and periphery. These ELS-related effects that are detectable even in adulthood may exacerbate pathology and increase the risk of developing AD via sex-specific mechanisms.

Effect of poly(propylene imine) glycodendrimers on ß-amyloid aggregation in vitro and in APP/PS1 transgenic mice, as a model of brain amyloid deposition and Alzheimer's disease.

Poly(propylene imine) (PPI) glycodendrimers are promising candidates as drug carriers and antiamyloidogenic and antiprionic agents. In this study the anti-ß-amyloid capacity of PPI glycodendrimers of the fourth and fifth generations was investigated in vitro and in vivo. We assessed distinct PPI glycodendrimers including G4mDS and G5mDS, with electroneutral maltose shell, and G4mOS and G4m-IIIOS, with cationic maltose or maltotriose shell. Our results show that in vitro PPI maltose dendrimers reduce the toxicity of Aß(1-42). However, only the electroneutral maltose dendrimers G4mDS and G5mDS reduce the toxicity of Alzheimer's disease brain extracts in SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells. PPI maltose dendrimers with electroneutral or cationic surface penetrate the cytoplasm of cultured cells, and they reach the brain when administered intranasally. Both cationic G4mOS and electroneutral G4mDS are able to modify the total burden of ß-amyloid in APP/PS1 mice. The studied dendrimers did not reverse memory impairment in APP/PS1 mice following chronic administration; moreover, cationic G4mOS caused cognitive decline in nontransgenic mice. In spite of the capacity of G4mDS and G4mOS to cross the blood-brain barrier and modulate Aß aggregation in APP/PS1 mice, further studies are needed to learn how to reduce the harmful effects of maltose dendrimers in vivo.

Maternal separation differentially modulates early pathology by sex in 5xFAD Alzheimer's disease-transgenic mice.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disease. Most cases of AD are considered idiopathic and likely due to a combination of genetic, environmental, and lifestyle-related risk factors. Despite occurring decades before the typical age of an AD diagnosis, early-life stress (ELS) has been suggested to have long-lasting effects that may contribute to AD risk and pathogenesis. Still, the mechanisms that underlie the role of ELS on AD risk remain largely unknown. Here, we used 5xFAD transgenic mice to study relatively short-term alterations related to ELS in an AD-like susceptible mouse model at 6 weeks of age. To model ELS, we separated pups from their dams for 3 h per day from postnatal day 2-14. Around 6 weeks of age, we found that maternally separated (MS) 5xFAD mice, particularly female mice, displayed increased amyloid-ß-immunoreactivity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and basolateral amygdala (BLA). In anterior cingulate cortex, we also noted significantly increased intraneuronal amyloid-ß-immunoreactivity associated with MS but only in female mice. Moreover, IBA1-positive DAPI density was significantly increased in relation to MS in ACC and BLA, and microglia in BLA of MS mice had significantly different morphology compared to microglia in non-MS 5xFAD mice. Cytokine analysis showed that male MS mice, specifically, had increased levels of neuroinflammatory markers CXCL1 and IL-10 in hippocampal extracts compared to non-MS counterparts. Additionally, hippocampal extracts from both male and female MS 5xFAD mice had decreased levels of synapse- and activity-related markers Bdnf, 5htr6, Cox2, and Syp in hippocampus. Lastly, we performed behavioral tests to evaluate anxiety- and depressive-like behavior and working memory but could not detect any significant differences between groups. Overall, we detected several sex-specific molecular and cellular alterations in 6-week-old adolescent 5xFAD mice associated with MS that may help explain the connection between ELS and AD risk.

Pre-plaque conformational changes in Alzheimer's disease-linked Aß and APP.

Reducing levels of the aggregation-prone Aß peptide that accumulates in the brain with Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been a major target of experimental therapies. An alternative approach may be to stabilize the physiological conformation of Aß. To date, the physiological state of Aß in brain remains unclear, since the available methods used to process brain tissue for determination of Aß aggregate conformation can in themselves alter the structure and/or composition of the aggregates. Here, using synchrotron-based Fourier transform infrared micro-spectroscopy, non-denaturing gel electrophoresis and conformational specific antibodies we show that the physiological conformations of Aß and amyloid precursor protein (APP) in brain of transgenic mouse models of AD are altered before formation of amyloid plaques. Furthermore, focal Aß aggregates in brain that precede amyloid plaque formation localize to synaptic terminals. These changes in the states of Aß and APP that occur prior to plaque formation may provide novel targets for AD therapy.