Amyloid-β-induced Alteration of Fast and Localized Calcium Elevations in Cultured Astrocytes

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that causes cognitive decline. Uncovering the mechanisms of neurodegeneration in the early stages is essential to establish a treatment for AD. Recent research has proposed the hypothesis that amyloid-β (Aβ) oligomers elicit an excessive glutamate release from astrocytes toward synapses through intracellular free Ca ²⁺ ([Ca ²⁺ ] _i ) elevations in astrocytes, finally resulting in neuronal dendritic spine loss. Under physiological conditions, astrocytic [Ca ²⁺ ] _i elevations range spatially from microdomains to network-wide propagation and temporally from milliseconds to tens of seconds. Astrocytic localized and fast [Ca ²⁺ ] _i elevations might correlate with glutamate release; however, the Aβ-induced alteration of localized, fast astrocytic [Ca ²⁺ ] _i elevations remains unexplored.

In this study, we quantitatively investigated the Aβ dimers-induced changes in the spatial and temporal patterns of [Ca ²⁺ ] _i in a primary culture of astrocytes by two-photon excitation spinning-disk confocal microscopy. The frequency of fast [Ca ²⁺ ] _i elevations occurring locally in astrocytes (≤0.5 s, ≤35 µm ² ) and [Ca ²⁺ ] _i event occupancy relative to cell area significantly increased after exposure to Aβ dimers.

The effect of Aβ dimers appeared dose-dependently above 500 nM, and these Aβ dimers-induced [Ca ²⁺ ] _i elevations were primarily mediated by a metabotropic purinergic receptor (P2Y1 receptor) and Ca ²⁺ release from the endoplasmic reticulum. Our findings suggest that the Aβ dimers-induced alterations and hyperactivation of astrocytic [Ca ²⁺ ] _i is a candidate cellular mechanism in the early stages of AD.