Presenilin is required for proper morphology and function of neurons in C. elegans

Nicole Wittenburg, Stefan Eimer, Bernard Lakowski, Sascha Röhrig, Claudia Rudolph and Ralf Baumeister ()
Additional contact information
Nicole Wittenburg: Genzentrum, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet
Stefan Eimer: Genzentrum, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet
Bernard Lakowski: Genzentrum, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet
Sascha Röhrig: Genzentrum, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet
Claudia Rudolph: EleGene GmbH
Ralf Baumeister: Genzentrum, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet

Nature, 2000, vol. 406, issue 6793, 306-309

Abstract: Abstract Mutations in the human presenilin genes cause the most frequent and aggressive forms of familial Alzheimer's disease (FAD)1. Here we show that in addition to its role in cell fate decisions in non-neuronal tissues2,3,4, presenilin activity is required in terminally differentiated neurons in vivo. Mutations in the Caenorhabditis elegans presenilin genes sel-12 and hop-1 result in a defect in the temperature memory of the animals. This defect is caused by the loss of presenilin function in two cholinergic interneurons that display neurite morphology defects in presenilin mutants. The morphology and function of the affected neurons in sel-12 mutant animals can be restored by expressing sel-12 only in these cells. The wild-type human presenilin PS1, but not the FAD mutant PS1 A246E, can also rescue these morphological defects. As lin-12 mutant animals display similar morphological and functional defects to presenilin mutants, we suggest that presenilins mediate their activity in postmitotic neurons by facilitating Notch signalling. These data indicate cell-autonomous and evolutionarily conserved control of neural morphology and function by presenilins.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/35018575 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:406:y:2000:i:6793:d:10.1038_35018575

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/35018575

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().