New EMBO Members Review
- The EMBO Journal (2004) 23, 483 - 488
- doi:10.1038/sj.emboj.7600061
Published online: 29 January 2004
Subject Categories:
Take five—BACE and the 
-secretase quartet conduct Alzheimer's amyloid 
-peptide generation
Christian Haass
- Department of Biochemistry, Adolf-Butenandt-Institute, Laboratory for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease Research, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, München, Germany
Correspondence to:
Christian Haass, Department of Biochemistry, Adolf-Butenandt-Institute, Laboratory for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease Research, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Schillerstr. 44 80336, München, Germany. Tel.: +89 5996 471; Fax: +89 5996 415; E-mail: chaass@pbm.med.uni-muenchen.de
Received 23 October 2003; Accepted 9 December 2003
Abstract
In 1959, Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond revolutionized modern jazz music by composing their unforgettable Take Five in 5/4, one of the most defiant time signatures in all music. Of similar revolutionary importance for biomedical and basic biochemical research is the identification of the minimal set of genes required to obtain a deadly time bomb ticking in all of us: Alzheimer's disease. It now appears that one needs to Take Five genes to produce a deadly peptide by a proteolytic mechanism, which paradoxically is otherwise of pivotal importance for development and cell fate decisions.
Keywords:
- Alzheimer's disease,
- amyloid
-peptide, - processing,
- secretases
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