TY - JOUR AU - Bieri, Gregor AU - Lucin, Kurt M. AU - O’Brien, Caitlin E. AU - Zhang, Hui AU - Villeda, Saul A. AU - Wyss-Coray, Tony PY - 2018 DA - 2018/12/29 TI - Proteolytic cleavage of Beclin 1 exacerbates neurodegeneration JO - Molecular Neurodegeneration SP - 68 VL - 13 IS - 1 AB - Neuronal cell loss contributes to the pathology of acute and chronic neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD). It remains crucial to identify molecular mechanisms sensitizing neurons to various insults and cell death. To date, the multifunctional, autophagy-related protein Beclin 1 has been shown to be both necessary and sufficient for neuronal integrity in neurodegenerative models associated with protein aggregation. Interestingly, besides its role in cellular homeostasis, Beclin 1 has also been ascribed a role in apoptosis. This makes it critical to elucidate whether Beclin 1 regulates neuronal death and survival across neurodegenerative conditions independent of protein clearance. Here, we provide experimental evidence for a direct functional link between proteolytic cleavage of Beclin 1 and apoptotic neuronal cell loss in two independent models of neurodegeneration in vivo. SN - 1750-1326 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s13024-018-0302-4 DO - 10.1186/s13024-018-0302-4 ID - Bieri2018 ER -