Familial Alzheimer’s disease (FAD)-causing mutant presenilins (PS) interact with inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3) receptor (IP3R) Ca2+ release channels resulting in enhanced IP3R channel gating in an amyloid beta (Aβ) production-independent manner. This gain-of-function enhancement of IP3R activity is considered to be the main reason behind the upregulation of intracellular Ca2+ signaling in the presence of optimal and suboptimal stimuli and spontaneous Ca2+ signals observed in cells expressing mutant PS. In this paper, we employed computational modeling of single IP3R channel activity records obtained under optimal Ca2+ and multiple IP3 concentrations to gain deeper insights into the enhancement of IP3R function. We found that in addition to the high occupancy of the high-activity (H) mode and the low occupancy of the low-activity (L) mode, IP3R in FAD-causing mutant PS-expressing cells exhibits significantly longer mean life-time for the H mode and shorter life-time for the L mode, leading to shorter mean close-time and hence high open probability of the channel in comparison to IP3R in cells expressing wild-type PS. The model is then used to extrapolate the behavior of the channel to a wide range of IP3 and Ca2+ concentrations and quantify the sensitivity of IP3R to its two ligands. We show that the gain-of-function enhancement is sensitive to both IP3 and Ca2+ and that very small amount of IP3 is required to stimulate IP3R channels in the presence of FAD-causing mutant PS to the same level of activity as channels in control cells stimulated by significantly higher IP3 concentrations. We further demonstrate with simulations that the relatively longer time spent by IP3R in the H mode leads to the observed higher frequency of local Ca2+ signals, which can account for the more frequent global Ca2+ signals observed, while the enhanced activity of the channel at extremely low ligand concentrations will lead to spontaneous Ca2+ signals in cells expressing FAD-causing mutant PS.

Mutants in presenilins (PS1 or PS2) is the major cause of Familial Alzheimer’s disease (FAD). FAD causing PS mutants affect intracellular Ca2+ homeostasis by enhancing the gating of inositol trisphosphate (IP3) receptor (IP3R) Ca2+ release channels on the endoplasmic reticulum, leading to exaggerated Ca2+ release into the cytoplasm. Using experimental IP3R-mediated Ca2+ release data, in conjunction with a computational model of cell bioenergetics, we explore how the differences in mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake in control cells and cells expressing FAD-causing PS mutants affect key variables such as ATP, reactive oxygen species (ROS), NADH, and mitochondrial Ca2+. We find that as a result of exaggerated cytosolic Ca2+ in FAD-causing mutant PS-expressing cells, the rate of oxygen consumption increases dramatically and overcomes the Ca2+ dependent enzymes that stimulate NADH production. This leads to decreased rates in proton pumping due to diminished membrane potential along with less ATP and enhanced ROS production. These results show that through Ca2+ signaling disruption, mutant PS leads to mitochondrial dysfunction and potentially to cell death.

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Intracellular accumulation of oligomeric forms of β amyloid (Aβ) are now believed to play a key role in the earliest phase of Alzheimer's disease (AD) as their rise correlates well with the early symptoms of the disease. Extensive evidence points to impaired neuronal Ca homeostasis as a direct consequence of the intracellular Aβ oligomers. However, little is known about the downstream effects of the resulting Ca rise on the many intracellular Ca-dependent pathways. Here we use multiscale modeling in conjunction with patch-clamp electrophysiology of single inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP) receptor (IPR) and fluorescence imaging of whole-cell Ca response, induced by exogenously applied intracellular Aβ oligomers to show that Aβ inflicts cytotoxicity by impairing mitochondrial function. Driven by patch-clamp experiments, we first model the kinetics of IPR, which is then extended to build a model for the whole-cell Ca signals. The whole-cell model is then fitted to fluorescence signals to quantify the overall Ca release from the endoplasmic reticulum by intracellular Aβ oligomers through G-protein-mediated stimulation of IP production. The estimated IP concentration as a function of intracellular Aβ content together with the whole-cell model allows us to show that Aβ oligomers impair mitochondrial function through pathological Ca uptake and the resulting reduced mitochondrial inner membrane potential, leading to an overall lower ATP and increased production of reactive oxygen species and HO. We further show that mitochondrial function can be restored by the addition of Ca buffer EGTA, in accordance with the observed abrogation of Aβ cytotoxicity by EGTA in our live cells experiments.

We report the transient positive photo annealing effect in which over 600% boost of power conversion efficiency was observed in inverted organic photovoltaic devices (OPV) made from P3HT/PCBM by spray method, after 2 hrs of constant solar AM 1.5 irradiation at low temperature. This is opposite to usual photodegradation of OPV, and cannot be explained by thermal activation alone since the mere temperature effect could only account for 30% of the enhancement. We have investigated the temperature dependence, cell geometry, oxygen influence, and conclude that, for p-doped active layer at room temperature, the predominant mechanism is photo-desorption of O2, which eliminates electron traps and reduces space charge screening. As temperature decreases, thermal activation and deep trap-state filling start to show noticeable effect on the enhancement of photocurrent at intermediate low temperature (T = 125 K). At very low temperature, the dominant mechanism for photo annealing is trap-filling, which significantly reduces recombination between free and trapped carriers. At all temperature, photo annealing effect depends on illumination direction from cathode or anode. We also explained the large fluctuation of photocurrent by the capture/reemit of trapped electrons from shallow electron traps of O2- generated by photo-doping. Our study has demonstrated the dynamic process of photo-doping and photo-desorption, and shown that photo annealing in vacuum can be an efficient method to improve OPV device efficiency.

A series of low band gap poly(3-dodecylthienylenevinylene) (PTV) with controlled morphological order have been synthesized and blended with the electron acceptor [6,6]–phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) for organic photovoltaic devices. Two polymers with the most and least side chain regioregularity were chosen in this work, namely the PTV010 and PTV55, respectively. Using photoluminescence, photo-induced absorption spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy, we find no direct evidence of photoinduced charge transfer between the two constituents, independent of the bulk-heterojunction morphology of the film, although the possibility of formation of P+/C60− charge transfer complex was not completely ruled out. The large exciton binding energy (Eb = 0.6 eV) in PTV inhibits the photoinduced electron transfer from PTV to PCBM. In addition, excitons formed on polymer chains suffer ultrafast (<ps) intrachain decay to the dark 2Ag state in both PTV010 and PTV55 cases, whereas excitons generated on PCBM molecules undergo energy transfer only to PTV55 in the blend film. Thus, the addition of PCBM increases the photoluminescence yield with respect to neat polymer yield. The efficiency of the energy transfer process is shown to depend on the degree of polymer and PCBM intermixing within the film, which in turn is governed by the polymer chain orders. The effect of such intermixing on the resulting kinetics of photo-induced excitations is also discussed. Our results show limited effect of polymer crystallinity of PTV to its excitonic properties, much the contrary of the case with poly (3-hexylthiophene) which has similar chemical structure with PTV.

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