Steps toward addressing the latter shortcoming have been taken by an international collaboration lead by Frank LaFerla, University of California at Irvine, and including Michael Wolfe at Harvard Medical School and Bart DeStrooper at Flanders Interuniversity, Leuven, Belgium. The researchers report in tomorrow's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that AICD plays an important role in intracellular calcium signaling.

The authors showed that mouse embryonic fibroblasts devoid of presenilin 1, the likely active component of γ-secretase, poorly mobilized intracellular calcium in response to external stimuli. Calcium signaling was also blocked by γ-secretase inhibitors, which blocked signal transduction as potently as they inhibited the protease. Furthermore, in AβPP-negative cells, Ca2+-signaling was markedly disrupted but could be rescued by transfection with whole AβPP or with just the AICD; transfection with an AβPP construct devoid of the AICD failed to restore signaling.

A role for AICD in regulation of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) calcium was suggested by the fact that PS1/PS2- or AβPP-negative fibroblasts, or those treated with γ-secretase inhibitors had lower ER calcium, an observation that agrees with previous data (Yoo et al 2000).

How the AICD may regulate signal transduction is uncertain but the authors found a 3-hour lag between inhibition of γ-secretase and inhibition of Ca2+-signaling, which would be sufficient time to modulate transcription.-Tom Fagan.

Reference:Leissring MA, Murphy MP, Mead TR, Akbari Y, Sugarman MC, Jannatipour M, Anliker B, Muller U, Saftig P, De Strooper B, Wolfe MS, Golde TE, LaFerla FM. "A physiologic signaling role for the g-secretase-derived intracellular fragment of APP." PNAS April 2 2002;(99):4697-4702. Abstract