Effects of beta-amyloid on proliferation and morphology of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Deposition of beta-amyloid peptide (1–42) (AP) in the brain is an early event linked with pathogenesis of cell injury and death in Alzheimer disease. Previous studies have demonstrated that AP induces cytotoxicity in several types of human cells. Surprisingly, the peptide was found not only to be non toxic for yeast cells, but to stimulate growth of yeast culture. The results are consistent with AP binding to yeast cell as illustrated by binding isotherms with theapparent dissociation constant of 8 × 10^-7 M and B_max of 4.7 × 10⁴ molecules/cell.