Our early study indicates that intracellular A1-42 aggregates are resistant to degradation and accumulate as an insoluble residue in lysosomes, where they alter the normal catabolism of amyloid precursor protein (APP) to cause the accumulation of insoluble APP and amyloidogenic fragments. In this study, we examined whether the addition of exogenous A1-42 also leads to the accumulation of newly synthesized intracellular A. Here we describe that newly synthesized A, especially An-42, is generated from metabolically labeled APP and accumulates in the insoluble fraction of cell lysates after A1-42 treatment. These results suggest that intracellular A may derive from a solid phase, intracellular pathway. In contrast to the pathway that primarily produces secreted A1-40, the solid-phase intracellular pathway preferentially produces An-42 with ragged amino termini. Biochemical studies and amino acid sequencing analyses indicate that these intracellular A also share the same types of A structures that accumulate in the brain of Alzheimer's disease patients, suggesting that a significant fraction of the amyloid deposits in Alzheimer's disease may arise by this solid-phase pathway.The major protein component of amyloid deposits associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) 1 is a 39 -42-amino acid, selfassembling peptide known as the amyloid A peptide. Although significant progress has been made in our understanding of the proteolytic processing of amyloid precursor protein (APP) and the secretion of soluble amyloid A peptide, the mechanisms for the accumulation of insoluble amyloid deposits and their role in AD pathogenesis remains a matter of speculation. It is clear that at least two pathways for APP processing give rise to fragments bearing A sequences at their amino termini: processing by ␣-secretase, which cleaves within the A sequence, thereby precluding amyloid accumulation, and -secretase processing, which generates carboxyl-terminal APP fragments containing the A sequence. Amyloidogenic, -secretase processing events may take place within several intracellular organelles, including the rough endoplasmic reticulum, trans-Golgi network, and lysosomes (1-7). Further processing of APP within the transmembrane domain by ␥-secretase releases soluble 3-and 4-kDa fragments containing all or part of the A sequence (8). Recent evidence indicates that the familial AD amino acid substitutions within the APP transmembrane domain and presenilin favor the production of A1-42 form of A, which is preferentially localized within diffuse plaques and senile plaques in AD brain. This suggests that A1-42 is more closely associated with AD pathogenesis than shorter A isoforms (9, 10).Biochemical studies of synthetic amyloid peptides have elucidated several important properties regarding their ability to assemble into the amyloid fibrils that characteristically accumulate in AD. Peptides that end at residue 42 aggregate much more rapidly than those ending at residue 39 or 40 (11, 12). The pH optimum for -sheet forma...