APOE4 exacerbates glucocorticoid stress hormone-induced tau pathology via mitochondrial dysfunction

APOE4 is the leading genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, and chronic stress is a leading environmental risk factor. Studies suggest that APOE4 confers vulnerability to the behavioral and neuropathological effects of chronic stress, representing a potential mechanism by which this genetic variant accelerates Alzheimer’s onset and progression. Whether and how APOE4 -mediated stress vulnerability manifests in neurons of the hippocampus, a brain region particularly susceptible to stress and Alzheimer’s pathology, remains unexplored.

Using a combination of in vivo and in vitro experiments in humanized APOE4 and APOE3 knockin mice and primary hippocampal neurons from these animals, we investigate whether and how APOE4 confers sensitivity to glucocorticoids, the main stress hormones.

We find that a major hallmark of stress/glucocorticoid-induced brain damage, tau pathology (i.e., tau accumulation, hyperphosphorylation, and spreading) is exacerbated in APOE4 versus APOE3 mice. Moreover, APOE4 animals exhibit underlying mitochondrial dysfunction and enhanced glucocorticoid receptor activation in the hippocampus, factors that likely contribute to tau pathogenesis in both the presence and absence of stress/glucocorticoids. Supporting this concept, we show that opening of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore drives mitochondrial dysfunction and tau pathology in APOE4 mice, and that pharmacological inhibition of pore opening is protective against ApoE4-mediated mitochondrial damage, tau phosphorylation and spreading, and downstream hippocampal synapse loss. These findings shed light on the mechanisms of stress vulnerability in APOE4 carriers and identify the mitochondrial permeability transition pore as a potential therapeutic target for ameliorating Alzheimer’s pathogenesis in this population.