Intracellular Injection of Brain Extracts from Alzheimer's Disease Patients Triggers Unregulated Ca Release from Intracellular Stores That Hinders Cellular Bioenergetics.

Strong evidence indicates that amyloid beta (Aβ) inflicts its toxicity in Alzheimer's disease (AD) by promoting uncontrolled elevation of cytosolic Ca in neurons. We have previously shown that synthetic Aβ42 oligomers stimulate abnormal intracellular Ca release from the endoplasmic reticulum stores, suggesting that a similar mechanism of Ca toxicity may be common to the endogenous Aβs oligomers. Here, we use human postmortem brain extracts from AD-affected patients and test their ability to trigger Ca fluxes when injected intracellularly into Xenopus oocytes.