A new monoclonal antibody against the anionic domain of the amyloid precursor protein of Alzheimer's disease.

A new mouse monoclonal antibody was raised to a bacterial fusion protein between beta-galactosidase and the extracellular domain of the human amyloid protein precursor (APP). In immunoblotting experiments, this monoclonal antibody labelled the bacterial fusion protein used as an immunogen, the human brain APP, and different full-length APP isoforms expressed by transfected cells. In immunocytochemistry, the monoclonal antibody stained the dystrophic neurites of abundant senile plaques found in the cerebral cortex of patients with Alzheimer's disease. Using bacterial expression of several cDNA fragments, the epitope was mapped to an amino acid sequence of APP not investigated before.