Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Jun;59(6):3617-3634.
doi: 10.1007/s12035-022-02809-3. Epub 2022 Mar 31.

Tau Toxicity in Neurodegeneration

Shu-Yu Liang  1 , Zuo-Teng Wang  2 , Lan Tan  3   4 , Jin-Tai Yu  5
Affiliations
Review

Tau Toxicity in Neurodegeneration

Shu-Yu Liang et al. Mol Neurobiol. 2022 Jun.

Abstract

Tau is a microtubule-associated protein widely distributed in the central nervous system (CNS). The main function of tau is to promote the assembly of microtubules and stabilize their structure. After a long period of research on neurodegenerative diseases, the function and dysfunction of the microtubule-associated protein tau in neurodegenerative diseases and tau neurotoxicity have attracted increasing attention. Tauopathies are a series of progressive neurodegenerative diseases caused by pathological changes in tau, such as abnormal phosphorylation. The pathological features of tauopathies are the deposition of abnormally phosphorylated tau proteins and the aggregation of tau proteins in neurons. This article first describes the normal physiological function and dysfunction of tau proteins and then discusses the enzymes and proteins involved in tau phosphorylation and dephosphorylation, the role of tau in cell dysfunction, and the relationships between tau and several neurodegenerative diseases. The study of tau neurotoxicity provides new directions for the treatment of tauopathies.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; Neurodegenerative disease; Tau protein; Toxicity.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Wang Y, Mandelkow E (2016) Tau in physiology and pathology. Nat Rev Neurosci 17(1):5–21. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2015.1 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Guo JL, Narasimhan S, Changolkar L, He Z, Stieber A, Zhang B, Gathagan RJ, Iba M, McBride JD, Trojanowski JQ, Lee VM (2016) Unique pathological tau conformers from Alzheimer’s brains transmit tau pathology in nontransgenic mice. J Exp Med 213(12):2635–2654. https://doi.org/10.1084/jem.20160833 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. He Z, Guo JL, McBride JD, Narasimhan S, Kim H, Changolkar L, Zhang B, Gathagan RJ, Yue C, Dengler C, Stieber A, Nitla M, Coulter DA, Abel T, Brunden KR, Trojanowski JQ, Lee VM (2018) Amyloid-β plaques enhance Alzheimer’s brain tau-seeded pathologies by facilitating neuritic plaque tau aggregation. Nat Med 24(1):29–38. https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.4443 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Teravskis PJ, Ashe KH, Liao D (2020) The accumulation of Tau in postsynaptic structures: a common feature in multiple neurodegenerative diseases? Neuroscientist 26(5–6):503–520. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073858420916696 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Xu H, O’Reilly M, Gibbons GS, Changolkar L, McBride JD, Riddle DM, Zhang B, Stieber A, Nirschl J, Kim SJ, Hoxha KH, Brunden KR, Schellenberg GD, Trojanowski JQ, Lee VM (2021) In vitro amplification of pathogenic tau conserves disease-specific bioactive characteristics. Acta Neuropathol 141(2):193–215. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00401-020-02253-4 - DOI - PubMed - PMC

LinkOut - more resources