The Role Of Calpain In Alzheimer's Disease

Calpain is a very versatile and commonly functioning protein in many pathways. Due to its large use in the body it plays a significant role in Alzheimer’s disease. Many studies have been done to see Calpain’s exact role in Alzheimer’s. As previously stated Alzheimer’s play a large role in memory loss. cAMP-response element binding protein is also a very important in converting short-term memory to long-term memory. cAMP-response element binding protein must be regulated very tightly because of its importance. One regulator which is believed to play a large role in regulated levels of cAMP-response element binding protein is protein phosphate-1. Protein phosphate-1 regulates cAMP-response element binding protein by becoming phosphorylated so it becomes active. (Cho et
al.
2015). When it is not phosphorylated it stays inactive and can cause problems in memory coding. If protein phosphate-1 is not activated then there will also be an issue in memory because it will not activate cAMP-response element binding protein. What activates protein phosphate-1 is DARPP-32. DARPP-32 is linked to Calpain, through activating DARPP-32. If Calpain is inhibited by calpeptin then it will stay in its inactive form and not cleave DARP-32. By not cleaving DARP-32 it will stay inactive as well, resulting in an inactive form of cAMP-response element binding protein. Which as said earlier will cause a problem in coding short-term memory into long-term memory, which is a calling card of Alzheimer’s. So down regulation of Calpain, has a cascade effect which helps form Alzheimer’s (Cho et al.
2015).