Brain Tumour Lessons From Alzheimer’s Disease: Beta-Amyloid and SorLA Expression in Glioblastoma

Abstract AIMS Exploring how two proteins strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease are expressed in glioma. Amyloid beta (Aβ) is a peptide cleaved from amyloid precursor protein (APP) that is shuttled around the cell by sorting-related receptor with A-type repeats (SorLA). Low expression of SorLA has been linked to increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease as APP processing shifts towards production of the plaque-forming Aβ42 rather than the more benign Aβ40. METHOD Expression of Aβ40, Aβ42 and SorLA was determined in immortalised cell lines (grade 4 glioblastoma U87MG, grade 2 astrocytoma 1321N1, foetal astrocytes SVGp12), glioblastoma patient-derived cells (PD301, PD304) and normal human astrocytes through western blotting or immunocytochemistry. RESULTS SorLA was present in all cells. Relative optical density was more than 60-fold higher for U87MG glioblastoma cells and approximately 10-fold higher for 1321N1 astrocytoma cells than SVGp12 cells. Similarly, SorLA had a significantly higher expression (p