Research Article Nucleofection of Rat Pheochromocytoma PC-12 Cells with Human Mutated Beta-Amyloid Precursor Protein Gene (APP-sw) Leads to Reduced Viability, Autophagy-Like Process, and Increased Expression and Secretion of Beta Amyloid

Copyright © 2015 Beata Pająk et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Pheochromocytoma PC-12 cells are immune to physiological stimuli directed to evoke programmed cell death. Besides, metabolic inhibitors are incapable of sensitizing PC-12 cells to extrinsic or intrinsic apoptosis unless they are used in toxic concentrations. Surprisingly, these cells become receptive to cell deletion after human APP-sw gene expression. We observed reduced cell viability in GFP vector + APP-sw-nucleofected cells (drop by 36%) but not in GFP vector − or GFP vector + APP-wt-nucleofected cells. Lower viability was accompanied by higher expression of