NIH R01 · 2025
Mechanism of cell uptake for pathogenic tau seeds
Alzheimer’s and related neurodegenerative diseases are a major health problem. The tau protein is known to play a critical role in these disorders. In the disease state tau transitions from a normal, “healthy” three- dimensional shape to one that is capable of self-assembling into pathological aggregates. Remarkably, these aggregates, once formed in a brain cell, appear to exit that cell and gain entry into neighboring or connected cells, where they can serve as disease-causing “templates” to corrupt normal tau protein to an abnormal conformation. Free tau aggregates can bind the cell surface by interacting with specific proteins called heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs), which are…
From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.