Figure 1
Amylin treatment of 5XFAD mice reduces the amyloid burden and improves their learning and memory. At 3.5 months of age, 5XFAD mice were treated by intraperitoneal injection of phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) or amylin (200 pg kg−1) daily for 10 weeks (n=10 per group) (Supplementary Table S1). (a) Dense-cored Aβ plaque burden is reduced in the whole brain, including the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus. (b) Amylin-treated mice had a significant reduction in Aβ amyloid burden in the cortex, hippocampus and thalamus quantitated by average amyloid intensity × plaque size. (c) Compared with PBS treatment, the amylin-treated mice also had fewer plaques in the cortex and thalamus, while the hippocampus region only showed a tendency. Compared with the PBS treatment, the amylin-treated mice had lower concentration of Aβ1-42 (pg per 10 μg brain protein) in the brain (d) (P=0.005) but had higher concentrations of Aβ1-42 in CSF (pg ml−1) (e) (P=0.04). The amylin-treated 5XFAD mice illustrated improved cognition by showing increased percentage of alternation in the Y maze test (f) (P=0.001) and by showing shortened times in Morris water maze test (g) in finding the hidden platform at day 10 (D10) (P=0.005), in memory at day 12 (D12) after the completion of training and skipping day 11 (P=0.002) and in the probe trial (P=0.03). Mean±s.e. was used with *P<0.0001; **P<0.01; ***P<0.05.
