The familial Alzheimer's disease gene product amyloid  protein precursor (APP) is sequentially processed by -and ␥-secretases to generate the A peptide. Although much is known about the biochemical pathway leading to A formation, because extracellular aggregates of A peptides are considered the cause of Alzheimer's disease, the biological role of APP processing is only recently being investigated. Cleavage of APP by ␥-secretase releases, together with A, a COOH-terminal APP intracellular domain, termed AID. Hoping to gain clues about proteins that regulates APP processing and function, we used the yeast two-hybrid system to identify proteins that interact with the AID region of APP. One of the interactors isolated is the autosomal recessive hypercholesterolemia (ARH) adapter protein. This molecular interaction is confirmed in vitro and in vivo by fluorescence resonance energy transfer and in cell lysates. Moreover, we show that reduction of ARH expression by RNA interference results in increased levels of cell membrane APP. These data assert a physiological role for ARH in APP internalization, transport, and/or processing.
APP1 is a ubiquitous type I transmembrane protein that undergoes extensive proteolytic processing along two major pathways (1-5). In the amyloidogenic pathway, APP is cleaved in the ectodomain by the -secretase forming a C99 membrane-bound intermediate. C99 can be cleaved by the ␥-secretase to release A and the APP intracellular domain (AID). Alternatively, APP can be cleaved within the A sequence by the ␣-secretase creating a C83 membrane-bound intermediate which produces P3 and AID after ␥-cleavage. APP processing is firmly associated with the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) because mutations associated with familial forms of AD are found in APP itself and in the highly homologous genes PS1 and PS2, which are key components of a multimolecular complex with ␥-secretase activity (6 -15).Although the role of A peptides in the pathogenesis of AD has been extensively studied, reports as to the role of AID are very recent. AID-like peptides have been identified in human brains from cases of sporadic AD (16) and play a role in apoptosis (16), transcription (17)(18)(19)(20), and Ca 2ϩ release from the endoplasmic reticulum (21).APP processing and AID signaling can be regulated by APP-interacting proteins (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22). Thus, to find APP-binding proteins we employed the yeast two-hybrid selection system. This screening resulted in the identification of several proteins that bind the intracellular domain of APP. Here we report the novel APP interactor ARH, an adapter protein that has been shown to regulate cholesterol uptake by genetic studies (22). These data suggest that ARH may be a mediator of the well described effect of cholesterol metabolism on APP processing.
MATERIALS AND METHODSYeast Two-hybrid System-The two-hybrid screening was conducted using the Matchmaker system from Clontech according to the manufacturer's instruction. For library screen...