PubMed: 27574109

Title
Analysis of isoform-specific tau aggregates suggests a common toxic mechanism involving similar pathological conformations and axonal transport inhibition.
Journal
Neurobiology of aging
Volume
47
Issue
None
Pages
113-126
Date
2016-11-01
Authors
Abdelmesih B | Brady ST | Combs B | Cox K | Kanaan NM | Morfini G

Evidence e4df0e4a64

In CBD, the characteristic astrocytic pathology (e.g. astrocytic plaques) showed extensive co-localization between TNT1, TOC1 and R1 in the frontal cortex (Fig. 5I–L).

Evidence c27311f094

Similarly, the characteristic Pick bodies in the frontal cortex were well labeled by TNT1, TOC1 and R1 in PiD tissue (Fig. 5M–P)

Evidence 5df7f6fa52

Right angle laser light scattering showed significantly greater scattered light intensity in all 4R tau isoforms when compared to 3R isoforms (one-way ANOVA with Holm-Sidak post-hoc, F(5, 18) = 60.22, p < 0.0001; Fig. 2A)

Evidence 46f3c729f0

Similar results were seen in the ThS assay, where the 4R isoforms were significantly higher than 3R isoforms (one-way ANOVA with Holm-Sidak post-hoc, F(5, 18) = 19.99, p < 0.0001; Fig. 2B), and no differences were found in comparisons between the individual 4R isoforms or between the 3R isoforms

Evidence d35d04ff16

In contrast, 3R isoforms were primarily composed of globular oligomers and only very rare long filaments were found (Fig. 2F–H)

Evidence 9d32d2a33d

The band patterns in the immunoblots showed that the AD cases contained a mixture of isoforms, the PiD cases clearly contained 3R isoforms but also some 4R isoforms, while the vast majority of pathology in CBD cases were comprised of 4R tau isoforms

Evidence eed85f1c39

A mixture of long, intermediate and short filaments, as well as globular oligomers were present in 4R isoform reactions (Fig. 2C–E)

Evidence 9f68af0d94

Indeed, early pre-tangle neurons within the hippocampus were labeled with all antibodies in Braak I-II cases (Fig. 5A–D)

Evidence 485345f531

Similarly, the soluble fraction from AD contained the greatest level of TOC1 reactivity, followed by CBD and then PiD had the lowest signal (Fig. 6D; one-way ANOVA with Holm-Sidak post-hoc, F(2,9) = 16.57, p = 0.001)

Evidence ee287cded7

TOC1 detected significantly more oligomeric tau in AD compared to CBD and PiD and more in CBD compared to PiD (Fig. 6G; one-way ANOVA with Holm-Sidak post-hoc, F(2,9) = 35.32, p < 0.0001)

Evidence cae734cb87

In contrast, AD soluble tau displayed the highest level of TNT1 followed by CBD, with PiD having the lowest levels (Fig. 6C; one-way ANOVA with Holm-Sidak post-hoc, F(2,9) = 24.87, p = 0.0002).

Evidence f8a18cd251

Total tau levels in the soluble fractions were similar for AD, CBD and PiD, as indicated by the Tau5 sandwich ELISA (Fig. 6B; one-way ANOVA, F(2,9) = 3.283, p = 0.085)

Evidence 4ce1ea6638

Total tau levels in the insoluble fractions, as detected by Tau5, were highest in AD, followed by CBD and PiD contained the least (Fig. 6E; one-way ANOVA with Holm-Sidak post-hoc, F(2,9) = 25.93, p = 0.0002)

Evidence 21c65fff02

TNT1 detected significantly more PAD exposed tau in AD compared to PiD, and more in CBD when compared to PiD, but AD and CBD were not different (Fig. 6F; one-way ANOVA with Holm-Sidak post-hoc, F(2,9) = 12.07, p = 0.0028)

Evidence d018bbd104

Collectively, these studies indicate that inhibition of anterograde FAT represents a toxic effect common to all tau aggregates, regardless of isoform composition

Evidence 170ed7155e

As expected, monomer and aggregated samples of all six tau isoforms showed equal reactivity for TNT1 and TOC1 when the samples were denatured because this exposes the epitopes making them equally accessible (Student’s t-tests, for all comparisons p > 0.05; Fig. 3C–H)

Evidence d69a4ec043

Comparisons between isoform monomers showed that hT39 monomer signal was significantly higher than hT24 and hT23 monomers (Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA with Dunn’s post-hoc, H = 18.4, p = 0.0025)

Evidence 6555467b8b

Comparisons between isoform monomers showed that hT39 monomer signal was significantly higher than hT24 and hT23 monomers (Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA with Dunn’s post-hoc, H = 18.6, p = 0.0023)

Evidence 97c382ea0c

hT40 showed the highest amount of light scattering compared to other 4R isoforms, and there were no differences between the different 3R isoforms

Evidence f66d1c82bb

In severe AD cases (i.e. Braak stage V-VI), all markers continue to colocalize in classic NFTs within the hippocampus that characterize AD tau pathology (Fig. 5E–H)

Evidence a524a126a1

In general, the remarkable co-localization between TNT1, TOC1 and R1 in all tauopathies confirms that PAD exposure and tau oligomerization occur simultaneously in cells displaying tau pathology, irrespective of isoform composition

Evidence 83af072875

The hT24 aggregates showed the highest TNT1 signal, which reached significance compared to hT40, hT39, hT37 and hT23 aggregates (one-way ANOVA with Holm-Sidak post-hoc, F(5, 18) = 19.11, p < 0.0001)

Evidence dd9a0c4b36

Aggregates of all six tau isoforms showed significant increases in TNT1 reactivity when compared to their respective monomer samples (Fig. 3A; Mann-Whitney test, for all comparisons p = 0.029)

Evidence 732a69709b

The hT24 aggregates showed the highest TOC1 signal, which reached significance compared to hT40, hT39, hT37 and hT23 aggregates, while hT34 aggregates were significantly different from hT39, hT37 and hT23 aggregates, and both hT40 and hT39 aggregates are significantly higher than hT37 and hT23 (one-way ANOVA with Holm-Sidak post-hoc, F(5, 18) = 50.77, p < 0.0001)

Evidence 5fbbd6a350

Aggregated samples for all six isoforms showed significant increases in TOC1 reactivity when compared to their respective monomer samples (Fig. 3B; Mann-Whitney tests, for all comparisons p = 0.029)

Evidence 011a4a46e5

Similarly, perfusion of squid axoplasms with hT39, hT37 and hT23 aggregates significantly impaired anterograde FAT (Fig. 4A) when compared to the respective monomers (all at 2 μM)

Evidence cc8efef072

hT40, hT34, hT24, hT37 and hT23 aggregates did not significantly impair retrograde FAT when compared to the respective monomers, but hT39 aggregates elicited a mild inhibitory effect on retrograde FAT (Fig. 4B)

Evidence c6b62bf3a3

Pairwise comparisons within tau species showed that hT24 aggregates produced significantly more inhibition of anterograde FAT when compared to hT34 and hT39 aggregates.

Evidence 31db411d19

Perfusion of hT40, hT34 and hT24 aggregates into squid axoplasms significantly impaired anterograde transport (Fig. 4A) when compared to the respective monomers (all at 2 μM).

Evidence 22919f6c23

Aggregation-induced increases in PAD exposure and oligomerization are common features among all tau isoforms. The extent of PAD exposure and oligomerization was larger for tau aggregates composed of 4-repeat isoforms compared with those made of 3-repeat isoforms.

About

BEL Commons is developed and maintained in an academic capacity by Charles Tapley Hoyt and Daniel Domingo-Fernández at the Fraunhofer SCAI Department of Bioinformatics with support from the IMI project, AETIONOMY. It is built on top of PyBEL, an open source project. Please feel free to contact us here to give us feedback or report any issues. Also, see our Publishing Notes and Data Protection information.

If you find BEL Commons useful in your work, please consider citing: Hoyt, C. T., Domingo-Fernández, D., & Hofmann-Apitius, M. (2018). BEL Commons: an environment for exploration and analysis of networks encoded in Biological Expression Language. Database, 2018(3), 1–11.