D.J. Selkoe, M.B. Podlisny, C.L. Joachim, E.A. Vickers, et al., "ß-amyloid precursor protein of Alzheimer disease occurs as 110- to 135-kilodalton membrane- associated proteins in neural and nonneural tissues," PNAS, 85, 7341-45, October 1988.
Dennis J. Selkoe (Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston): "During the past three years, there has been a rapidly growing interest in the normal biology and pathobiology of the ß-amyloid precursor protein (APP). APP is a highly conserved family of alternatively spliced transcripts that are differentially expressed in a wide range of tissues and cultured cells. One function of APP is as an inhibitor of serine proteases in the extracellular space. From the point of view of human pathology, APP is the precursor of the abnormal ß-amyloid protein fragments that accumulate in the characteristic senile plaques of Alzheimer's disease. Such deposits are increasingly believed to represent a very early change in the brains ...
