[Biochemistry of presenilin 1].
The majority of cases of early-onset familial Alzheimer disease are caused by mutations in the recently identified presenilin 1 (PS 1) gene, located on chromosome 14. PS1, a 467 amino acid protein, is predicted to be an integral membrane protein containing seven putative transmembrane domains and a large hydrophilic loop between the sixth and seventh membrane-spanning domain. We produced 7 monoclonal antibodies that react with 3 non-overlapping epitopes on the N-terminal hydrophilic tail of PS1. The monoclonal antibodies can detect the full size PS1 at M(r) 47,000 (47K) and a more abundant M(r) 28,000 (28K) product in membrane from human brain and human cell lines. We examined the sub-cellular localization by using these antibodies. Immuno-electronmicroscopic and biochemical analysis indicated that PS1 is localized on cellular membrane (plasma, endoplasmic reticulum, and perinuclear) in COS-7 cells overexpressing PS1. Interestingly, the PS1 immunoreactivity in the plasma membrane was concentrated in the regions with cell-cell contact. This observation suggests a possible role of PS1 on the cell membrane as a cell adhesion molecule. To determine the protease cleaving the full length PS1 to two fragments, we treated cells with various protease inhibitors. Only proteasome inhibitor affected the PS1 processing, indicating that proteasome is a candidate protease for PS1 proteolytic cleavage. PC12 cells transiently transfected with PS1 constructs containing different Alzheimer mutations fail to generate the 28K degradation product in contrast to PC12 cells transfected with wild type PS1. Our results indicate that missense mutations in this form of familial Alzheimer disease may act via a mechanism of impaired proteolytic processing of PS1.