Abnormal Protein Profiles in Hippocampus of Mouse Models of Down Syndrome: Similarities with Alzheimers Disease

Down syndrome (DS) is caused by an extra copy of the long arm of human chromosome 21 (HSA21) and the increased expression, due to dosage, of HSA21 encoded genes. In addition to intellectual disability, all individuals with DS develop the neuropathology of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) by age 30-40. The amyloid precursor protein gene, APP, that is mutated or duplicated in some familial AD (FAD), is encoded by HSA21, over expressed in DS, and a candidate for causing AD in DS. However, only half of those with DS will develop the AD-like dementia by age 50-60, suggesting that additional HSA21 genes may modulate the effects of APP triplication, and/or protect the DS brain from early onset progression to dementia in spite of neuropathology. In sporadic AD and mouse models of FAD, abnormal levels of a diverse set of proteins, including receptors, scaffold proteins, kinases, phosphatases and cytokines, have been documented, but nothing is known about their possible roles in AD in DS. Here, we compare expression of 26 AD-related proteins in hippocampus of four mouse models of DS, the Ts65Dn, Tc1, Dp (10)1Yey and Dp (17)1Yey, that together provided trisomy of partially overlapping subsets of all HSA21 genes or mouse orthologs. In the Dp(10)1Yey, that is trisomic for HSA21 orthologs mapping to mouse chromosome 10, twelve of 26 AD-related proteins were elevated, while in the Tc1, Dp(17)1Yey and the popular Ts65Dn, six, four and two differed from littermate controls. These data suggest that genes mapping to the HSA21 orthologous regions of mouse chromosomes 10 and 17 contribute to protein perturbations in the DS brain, and possibly AD in DS. Considering the different phenotypic features of the four DS mouse models further suggests that some protein abnormalities may be compensatory and protective for brain function and/or that learning and memory deficits may be age-dependent.