- Baglietto-Vargas, David;
- Forner, Stefania;
- Cai, Lena;
- Martini, Alessandra C;
- Trujillo-Estrada, Laura;
- Swarup, Vivek;
- Nguyen, Marie Minh Thu;
- Do Huynh, Kelly;
- Javonillo, Dominic I;
- Tran, Kristine Minh;
- Phan, Jimmy;
- Jiang, Shan;
- Kramár, Enikö A;
- Nuñez-Diaz, Cristina;
- Balderrama-Gutierrez, Gabriela;
- Garcia, Franklin;
- Childs, Jessica;
- Rodriguez-Ortiz, Carlos J;
- Garcia-Leon, Juan Antonio;
- Kitazawa, Masashi;
- Shahnawaz, Mohammad;
- Matheos, Dina P;
- Ma, Xinyi;
- Da Cunha, Celia;
- Walls, Ken C;
- Ager, Rahasson R;
- Soto, Claudio;
- Gutierrez, Antonia;
- Moreno-Gonzalez, Ines;
- Mortazavi, Ali;
- Tenner, Andrea J;
- MacGregor, Grant R;
- Wood, Marcelo;
- Green, Kim N;
- LaFerla, Frank M
The majority of Alzheimer's disease (AD) cases are late-onset and occur sporadically, however most mouse models of the disease harbor pathogenic mutations, rendering them better representations of familial autosomal-dominant forms of the disease. Here, we generated knock-in mice that express wildtype human Aβ under control of the mouse App locus. Remarkably, changing 3 amino acids in the mouse Aβ sequence to its wild-type human counterpart leads to age-dependent impairments in cognition and synaptic plasticity, brain volumetric changes, inflammatory alterations, the appearance of Periodic Acid-Schiff (PAS) granules and changes in gene expression. In addition, when exon 14 encoding the Aβ sequence was flanked by loxP sites we show that Cre-mediated excision of exon 14 ablates hAβ expression, rescues cognition and reduces the formation of PAS granules.