Presenilin-1/2 conditional double knockout mice: an ideal model for Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common and serious neurodegenerative disease, whose molecular mechanism is still unclear. So far more and more evidences have shown that the mutation of presenilin1/2 gene is the most important factor in familial AD. Presenilin1 and presenilin 2 conditional double knockout mice (DKO mice), possess most clinical features of AD and exhibit molecular changes, morphology and neuropathology alteration, inflammatory reaction, electrophysiology, cognitive deficits and emotional response in gradually time-dependent mode; furthermore, by environment enrichment(EE), calories restriction(CR), exercise and pharmacology, the deficits of the DKO mice in learning and memory ability, emotional response and neuropathology could be partially improved. All these results suggest that the DKO mice are an ideal AD animal model for exploring the pathologic causes of AD and screening new drugs for prevention and treatment of AD.