AIP-1 ameliorates beta-amyloid peptide toxicity in a Caenorhabditis elegans Alzheimer's disease model.

Multiple neurodegenerative diseases are causally linked to aggregation-prone proteins. Cellular mechanisms involving protein turnover may be key defense mechanisms against aggregating protein disorders. We have used a transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans Alzheimer's disease model to identify cellular responses to proteotoxicity resulting from expression of the human beta amyloid peptide (Abeta).

Suppression of in vivo beta-amyloid peptide toxicity by overexpression of the HSP-16.2 small chaperone protein.

Expression of the human beta-amyloid peptide (Abeta) in a transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans Alzheimer disease model leads to the induction of HSP-16 proteins, a family of small heat shock-inducible proteins homologous to vertebrate alphaB crystallin. These proteins also co-localize and co-immunoprecipitate with Abeta in this model (Fonte, V., Kapulkin, V.