CLONING OF CDNA AND EXPRESSION OF THE GENE ENCODING RAT PRESENILIN-2

We have cloned the rat homologue of the presenilin-2 (PS-2) cDNA. PS-2 is responsible for chromosome 1-linked familial Alzheimer's disease. Sequence analysis predicted that the rat PS-2 encodes a 448 amino acid (aa) protein, and there was a very high degree of amino acid identity between rat and human PS-2 (95%). All the mutated codons in PS-2 and PS-I in chromosome 1- or 14-linked familial Alzheimer's disease patien ts were conserved in rat PS-2. The expression of PS-2 was weaker than that of PS-1. The alternatively spliced short form of PS-2 mRNA, which was detected in human tissues was not detected in various rat tissues . During brain development, the expression level of both PS-2 and PS-1 increased but decreased in the adult. No remarkable change was observ ed in neural differentiation of PC12 cells. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.