Skip to Content
Merck
  • A three-dimensional human neural cell culture model of Alzheimer's disease.

A three-dimensional human neural cell culture model of Alzheimer's disease.

Nature (2014-10-14)
Se Hoon Choi, Young Hye Kim, Matthias Hebisch, Christopher Sliwinski, Seungkyu Lee, Carla D'Avanzo, Hechao Chen, Basavaraj Hooli, Caroline Asselin, Julien Muffat, Justin B Klee, Can Zhang, Brian J Wainger, Michael Peitz, Dora M Kovacs, Clifford J Woolf, Steven L Wagner, Rudolph E Tanzi, Doo Yeon Kim
ABSTRACT

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, characterized by two pathological hallmarks: amyloid-β plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. The amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease posits that the excessive accumulation of amyloid-β peptide leads to neurofibrillary tangles composed of aggregated hyperphosphorylated tau. However, to date, no single disease model has serially linked these two pathological events using human neuronal cells. Mouse models with familial Alzheimer's disease (FAD) mutations exhibit amyloid-β-induced synaptic and memory deficits but they do not fully recapitulate other key pathological events of Alzheimer's disease, including distinct neurofibrillary tangle pathology. Human neurons derived from Alzheimer's disease patients have shown elevated levels of toxic amyloid-β species and phosphorylated tau but did not demonstrate amyloid-β plaques or neurofibrillary tangles. Here we report that FAD mutations in β-amyloid precursor protein and presenilin 1 are able to induce robust extracellular deposition of amyloid-β, including amyloid-β plaques, in a human neural stem-cell-derived three-dimensional (3D) culture system. More importantly, the 3D-differentiated neuronal cells expressing FAD mutations exhibited high levels of detergent-resistant, silver-positive aggregates of phosphorylated tau in the soma and neurites, as well as filamentous tau, as detected by immunoelectron microscopy. Inhibition of amyloid-β generation with β- or γ-secretase inhibitors not only decreased amyloid-β pathology, but also attenuated tauopathy. We also found that glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) regulated amyloid-β-mediated tau phosphorylation. We have successfully recapitulated amyloid-β and tau pathology in a single 3D human neural cell culture system. Our unique strategy for recapitulating Alzheimer's disease pathology in a 3D neural cell culture model should also serve to facilitate the development of more precise human neural cell models of other neurodegenerative disorders.

MATERIALS
Product Number
Brand
Product Description

Sigma-Aldrich
ReNcell NSC Maintenance Media, ReNcell NSC Maintenance Medium is a defined serum-free, growth factor-free neural stem cell medium that has been optimized for the growth & in vitro differentiation of ReNcell immortalized human neural progenitor cells.
Sigma-Aldrich
Alzheimer′s In A Dish PSEN1-RFP Lentivirus
Sigma-Aldrich
Alzheimer′s In A Dish APPSL-GFP Lentivirus
Sigma-Aldrich
ReNcell VM Human Neural Progenitor Cell LIne, ReNcell VM is an immortalized human neural progenitor cell line with the ability to readily differentiate into neurons & glial cells.