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Chapter category: Neurodegenerative Disease

β - Secretase: Progress and Open Questions

This chapter appears in the following book:

Ab Metabolism and Alzheimer's Disease

Edited by: Takaomi Saido
ISBN: 1-58706-230-5
» Get more information about this book at landesbioscience.com «

Chapter authors:
Martin Citron


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Finding inhibitors of Aβ42 generation is a major goal of Alzheimer's disease drug development. Two target protease activities, β-and γ-secretases, were operationally defined more than 10 years ago, but progress in this area has been slow because the actual enzymes were not identified. Using an expression cloning strategy we have identified a novel membrane bound aspartic protease, BACE1, as β-secretase. This finding has been confirmed and BACE1 and its homologue BACE2 have been characterized in detail by many groups. Major progress has been made in two areas: First, the x-ray crystal structure, which is critical for rational inhibitor design, has been solved and shown to be similar to that of other pepsin family members. Second, knockout studies show that BACE1 is critical for Aβ generation, but the knockout mice show an otherwise normal phenotype, raising the possibility that therapeutic BACE1 inhibition could be accomplished without major mechanismbased toxicity. However, targetmediated toxicity of β-secretase inhibition cannot be ruled out based on the currently available data alone. While various peptidic β-secretase inhibitors have been published, the key challenge now is the generation of more druglike compounds that could be developed for therapeutic purposes. Other current areas of investigation, including identification of BACE1 substrates and the potential role of BACE1 overexpression in AD, are discussed.

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