RESEARCH ARTICLE
β- and γ-Secretases and Lipid Rafts
Wataru Araki*
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2010Volume: 3
First Page: 16
Last Page: 20
Publisher Id: TOBIOJ-3-16
DOI: 10.2174/18741967010030100016
Article History:
Received Date: 07/09/2009Revision Received Date: 25/09/2009
Acceptance Date: 28/09/2009
Electronic publication date: 19/3/2010
Collection year: 2010
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The cerebral accumulation of β-amyloid protein (Aβ) is thought to play a key role in the molecular pathology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Recent evidence indicates that both β-secretase and γ-secretase, the membrane-associated proteases directly involved in the generation of Aβ from its precursor, amyloid precursor protein (APP), are localized to cholesterol-rich membrane microdomains termed lipid rafts. This underscores the significance of lipid rafts in the amyloidogenic processing of APP. In the present mini-review, I summarize recent research developments that shed light on the association of β-secretase and γ-secretase with lipid rafts, and discuss their implications for the pathology and therapeutics of AD.