| 1. |
- Karikari, Thomas, et al.
(författare)
-
The C291R Tau Variant Forms Different Types of Protofibrils
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1662-5099. ; 13
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mutations in the MAPT gene can lead to disease-associated variants of tau. However, the pathological mechanisms behind these genetic tauopathies are poorly understood. Here, we characterized the aggregation stages and conformational changes of tau C291R, a recently described MAPT mutation with potential pathogenic functions. The C291R variant of the tau four-repeat domain (tau-K18; a functional fragment with increased aggregation propensity compared with the full-length protein), aggregated into a mix of granular oligomers, amorphous and annular pore-like aggregates, in native-state and heparin-treated reactions as observed using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and negative-stained electron microscopy. On extended incubation in the native-state, tau-K18 C291R oligomers, unlike wild type (WT) tau-K18, aggregated to form protofibrils of four different phenotypes: (1) spherical annular; (2) spherical annular encapsulating granular oligomers; (3) ring-like annular but non-spherical; and (4) linear protofibrils. The ring-like tau-K18 C291R aggregates shared key properties of annular protofibrils previously described for other amyloidogenic proteins, in addition to two unique features: irregular/non-spherical-shaped annular protofibrils, and spherical protofibrils encapsulating granular oligomers. Tau-K18 C291R monomers had a circular dichroism (CD) peak at similar to 210 nm compared with similar to 199 nm for tau-K18 WT. These data suggest mutation-enhanced beta-sheet propensity. Together, we describe the characterization of tau-K18 C291R, the first genetic mutation substituting a cysteine residue. The aggregation mechanism of tau-K18 C291R appears to involve beta-sheet-rich granular oligomers which rearrange to form unique protofibrillar structures.
|
|
| 2. |
- Ashton, Nicholas J., et al.
(författare)
-
An update on blood-based biomarkers for non-Alzheimer neurodegenerative disorders.
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Nature Reviews Neurology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1759-4766 .- 1759-4758. ; 16, s. 265-284
-
Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cerebrospinal fluid analyses and neuroimaging can identify the underlying pathophysiology at the earliest stage of some neurodegenerative disorders, but do not have the scalability needed for population screening. Therefore, a blood-based marker for such pathophysiology would have greater utility in a primary care setting and in eligibility screening for clinical trials. Rapid advances in ultra-sensitive assays have enabled the levels of pathological proteins to be measured in blood samples, but research has been predominantly focused on Alzheimer disease (AD). Nonetheless, proteins that were identified as potential blood-based biomarkers for AD, for example, amyloid-β, tau, phosphorylated tau and neurofilament light chain, are likely to be relevant to other neurodegenerative disorders that involve similar pathological processes and could also be useful for the differential diagnosis of clinical symptoms. This Review outlines the neuropathological, clinical, molecular imaging and cerebrospinal fluid features of the most common neurodegenerative disorders outside the AD continuum and gives an overview of the current status of blood-based biomarkers for these disorders.
|
|
| 3. |
- Benussi, Alberto, et al.
(författare)
-
Diagnostic and prognostic value of serum NfL and p-Tau181 in frontotemporal lobar degeneration.
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry. - : BMJ. - 1468-330X .- 0022-3050. ; 91:9, s. 960-967
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To assess the diagnostic and prognostic value of serum neurofilament light (NfL) and serum phospho-Tau181 (p-Tau181) in a large cohort of patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD).In this retrospective study, performed on 417 participants, we analysed serum NfL and p-Tau181 concentrations with an ultrasensitive single molecule array (Simoa) approach. We assessed the diagnostic values of serum biomarkers in the differential diagnosis between FTLD, Alzheimer's disease (AD) and healthy ageing; their role as markers of disease severity assessing the correlation with clinical variables, cross-sectional brain imaging and neurophysiological data; their role as prognostic markers, considering their ability to predict survival probability in FTLD.We observed significantly higher levels of serum NfL in patients with FTLD syndromes, compared with healthy controls, and lower levels of p-Tau181 compared with patients with AD. Serum NfL concentrations showed a high accuracy in discriminating between FTLD and healthy controls (area under the curve (AUC): 0.86, p<0.001), while serum p-Tau181 showed high accuracy in differentiating FTLD from patients with AD (AUC: 0.93, p<0.001). In FTLD, serum NfL levels correlated with measures of cognitive function, disease severity and behavioural disturbances and were associated with frontotemporal atrophy and indirect measures of GABAergic deficit. Moreover, serum NfL concentrations were identified as the best predictors of survival probability.The assessment of serum NfL and p-Tau181 may provide a comprehensive view of FTLD, aiding in the differential diagnosis, in staging disease severity and in defining survival probability.
|
|
| 4. |
- Benussi, Alberto, et al.
(författare)
-
Serum Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein (GFAP) Is a Marker of Disease Severity in Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration.
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD. - 1875-8908. ; 77:3, s. 1129-1141
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- It is still unknown if serum glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) is a useful marker in frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD).To assess the diagnostic and prognostic value of serum GFAP in a large cohort of patients with FTLD.In this retrospective study, performed on 406 participants, we measured serum GFAP concentration with an ultrasensitive Single molecule array (Simoa) method in patients with FTLD, Alzheimer's disease (AD), and in cognitively unimpaired elderly controls. We assessed the role of GFAP as marker of disease severity by analyzing the correlation with clinical variables, neurophysiological data, and cross-sectional brain imaging. Moreover, we evaluated the role of serum GFAP as a prognostic marker of disease survival.We observed significantly higher levels of serum GFAP in patients with FTLD syndromes, except progressive supranuclear palsy, compared with healthy controls, but not compared with AD patients. In FTLD, serum GFAP levels correlated with measures of cognitive dysfunction and disease severity, and were associated with indirect measures of GABAergic deficit. Serum GFAP concentration was not a significant predictor of survival.Serum GFAP is increased in FTLD, correlates with cognition and GABAergic deficits, and thus shows promise as a biomarker of disease severity in FTLD.
|
|
| 5. |
- Hill, E., et al.
(författare)
-
Understanding the Pathophysiological Actions of Tau Oligomers: A Critical Review of Current Electrophysiological Approaches
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1662-5099. ; 13
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Tau is a predominantly neuronal protein that is normally bound to microtubules, where it acts to modulate neuronal and axonal stability. In humans, pathological forms of tau are implicated in a range of diseases that are collectively known as tauopathies. Kinases and phosphatases are responsible for maintaining the correct balance of tau phosphorylation to enable axons to be both stable and labile enough to function properly. In the early stages of tauopathies, this balance is interrupted leading to dissociation of tau from microtubules. This leaves microtubules prone to damage and phosphorylated tau prone to aggregation. Initially, phosphorylated tau forms oligomers, then fibrils, and ultimately neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs). It is widely accepted that the initial soluble oligomeric forms of tau are probably the most pathologically relevant species but there is relatively little quantitative information to explain exactly what their toxic effects are at the individual neuron level. Electrophysiology provides a valuable tool to help uncover the mechanisms of action of tau oligomers on synaptic transmission within single neurons. Understanding the concentration-, time-, and neuronal compartment-dependent actions of soluble tau oligomers on neuronal and synaptic properties are essential to understanding how best to counteract its effects and to develop effective treatment strategies. Here, we briefly discuss the standard approaches used to elucidate these actions, focusing on the advantages and shortcomings of the experimental procedures. Subsequently, we will describe a new approach that addresses specific challenges with the current methods, thus allowing real-time toxicity evaluation at the single-neuron level.
|
|
| 6. |
- Karikari, Thomas, et al.
(författare)
-
An extensive plasmid library to prepare tau protein variants and study their functional biochemistry.
- 2020
-
Ingår i: ACS chemical neuroscience. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1948-7193. ; 11:19, s. 3117-3129
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Tau neurofibrillary tangles are key pathological features of Alzheimer's disease and other tauopathies. Recombinant protein technology is vital for studying the structure and function of tau in physiology and aggregation in pathophysiology. However, open-source and well-characterized plasmids for efficiently expressing and purifying different tau variants are lacking. We generated 44 sequence-verified plasmids including those encoding full length (FL) tau-441, its four-repeat microtubule-binding (K18) fragment, and their respective selected familial pathological variants (N279K, V337M, P301L, C291R and S356T). Moreover, plasmids for expressing single (C291A), double (C291A/C322A) and triple (C291A/C322A/I260C) cysteine-modified variants were generated to study alterations in cysteine content and locations. Furthermore, protocols for producing representative tau forms were developed. We produced and characterized the aggregation behavior of the triple cysteine-modified tau-K18, often used in real-time cell internalization and aggregation studies because it can be fluorescently labeled on a cysteine outside the microtubule-binding core. Similar to the wild type (WT), triple cysteine-modified tau-K18 aggregated by progressive -sheet enrichment, albeit at a slower rate. On prolonged incubation, cysteine-modified K18 formed paired helical filaments similar to those in Alzheimer's disease, sharing morphological phenotypes with WT tau-K18 filaments. Nonetheless, cysteine-modified tau-K18 filaments were significantly shorter (p=0.002) and mostly wider than WT filaments, explainable by their different principal filament elongation pathways: vertical (end-to-end) and lateral growth for WT and cysteine-modified respectively. Cysteine rearrangement may therefore induce filament polymorphism. Together, the plasmid library, the protein production methods, and the new insights into cysteine-dependent aggregation, should facilitate further studies and the design of anti-aggregation agents.
|
|
| 7. |
- Karikari, Thomas, et al.
(författare)
-
Blood phosphorylated tau 181 as a biomarker for Alzheimer's disease: a diagnostic performance and prediction modelling study using data from four prospective cohorts.
- 2020
-
Ingår i: The Lancet. Neurology. - 1474-4465 .- 1474-4422. ; 19:5, s. 422-433
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- CSF and PET biomarkers of amyloid β and tau accurately detect Alzheimer's disease pathology, but the invasiveness, high cost, and poor availability of these detection methods restrict their widespread use as clinical diagnostic tools. CSF tau phosphorylated at threonine 181 (p-tau181) is a highly specific biomarker for Alzheimer's disease pathology. We aimed to assess whether blood p-tau181 could be used as a biomarker for Alzheimer's disease and for prediction of cognitive decline and hippocampal atrophy.We developed and validated an ultrasensitive blood immunoassay for p-tau181. Assay performance was evaluated in four clinic-based prospective cohorts. The discovery cohort comprised patients with Alzheimer's disease and age-matched controls. Two validation cohorts (TRIAD and BioFINDER-2) included cognitively unimpaired older adults (mean age 63-69 years), participants with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer's disease, and frontotemporal dementia. In addition, TRIAD included healthy young adults (mean age 23 years) and BioFINDER-2 included patients with other neurodegenerative disorders. The primary care cohort, which recruited participants in Montreal, Canada, comprised control participants from the community without a diagnosis of a neurological condition and patients referred from primary care physicians of the Canadian National Health Service for specialist care. Concentrations of plasma p-tau181 were compared with established CSF and PET biomarkers and longitudinal measurements using Spearman correlation, area under the curve (AUC), and linear regression analyses.We studied 37 individuals in the discovery cohort, 226 in the first validation cohort (TRIAD), 763 in the second validation cohort (BioFINDER-2), and 105 in the primary care cohort (n=1131 individuals). In all cohorts, plasma p-tau181 showed gradual increases along the Alzheimer's disease continuum, from the lowest concentrations in amyloid β-negative young adults and cognitively unimpaired older adults, through higher concentrations in the amyloid β-positive cognitively unimpaired older adults and MCI groups, to the highest concentrations in the amyloid β-positive MCI and Alzheimer's disease groups (p<0·001, Alzheimer's disease vs all other groups). Plasma p-tau181 distinguished Alzheimer's disease dementia from amyloid β-negative young adults (AUC=99·40%) and cognitively unimpaired older adults (AUC=90·21-98·24% across cohorts), as well as other neurodegenerative disorders, including frontotemporal dementia (AUC=82·76-100% across cohorts), vascular dementia (AUC=92·13%), progressive supranuclear palsy or corticobasal syndrome (AUC=88·47%), and Parkinson's disease or multiple systems atrophy (AUC=81·90%). Plasma p-tau181 was associated with PET-measured cerebral tau (AUC=83·08-93·11% across cohorts) and amyloid β (AUC=76·14-88·09% across cohorts) pathologies, and 1-year cognitive decline (p=0·0015) and hippocampal atrophy (p=0·015). In the primary care cohort, plasma p-tau181 discriminated Alzheimer's disease from young adults (AUC=100%) and cognitively unimpaired older adults (AUC=84·44%), but not from MCI (AUC=55·00%).Blood p-tau181 can predict tau and amyloid β pathologies, differentiate Alzheimer's disease from other neurodegenerative disorders, and identify Alzheimer's disease across the clinical continuum. Blood p-tau181 could be used as a simple, accessible, and scalable test for screening and diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.Alzheimer Drug Discovery Foundation, European Research Council, Swedish Research Council, Swedish Alzheimer Foundation, Swedish Dementia Foundation, Alzheimer Society Research Program.
|
|
| 8. |
- Lantero Rodriguez, Juan, et al.
(författare)
-
Plasma p-tau181 accurately predicts Alzheimer's disease pathology at least 8years prior to post-mortem and improves the clinical characterisation of cognitive decline.
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Acta neuropathologica. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1432-0533 .- 0001-6322. ; 140:3, s. 267-278
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The neuropathological confirmation of amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) remains the gold standard for a definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Nowadays, the in vivo diagnosis of AD is greatly aided by both cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and positron emission tomography (PET) biomarkers. Although highly accurate, their broad implementation is restricted by high cost, limited accessibility and invasiveness. We recently developed a high-performance, ultrasensitive immunoassay for the quantification of tau phosphorylated at threonine-181 (p-tau181) in plasma, which identifies AD pathophysiology with high accuracy. However, it remains unclear whether plasma p-tau181, measured years before the death, can predict the eventual neuropathological confirmation of AD, and successfully discriminates AD from non-AD dementia pathologies. We studied a unique cohort of 115 individuals with longitudinal blood collections with clinical evaluation at 8, 4 and 2years prior to neuropathological assessment at death. The results demonstrate that plasma p-tau181 associates better with AD neuropathology and Braak staging than a clinical diagnosis 8years before post-mortem. Moreover, while all patients had a diagnosis of AD dementia during life, plasma p-tau181 proved to discriminate AD from non-AD pathologies with high accuracy (AUC=97.4%, 95% CI=94.1-100%) even 8years before death. Additionally, the longitudinal trajectory of plasma p-tau181 was assessed in all patients. We found that the main increases in plasma p-tau181 occurred between 8 and 4years prior to death in patients with AD neuropathology and later plateauing. In contrast, non-AD pathologies and controls exhibited minor, albeit significant, increases in p-tau181 up until death. Overall, our study demonstrates that plasma p-tau181 is highly predictive and specific of AD neuropathology years before post-mortem examination. These data add further support for the use of plasma p-tau181 to aid clinical management in primary care and recruitment for clinical trials.
|
|
| 9. |
- Roig-Puiggros, S., et al.
(författare)
-
Construction and reconstruction of brain circuits: normal and pathological axon guidance
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Journal of Neurochemistry. - : Wiley. - 0022-3042 .- 1471-4159.
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Perception of our environment entirely depends on the close interaction between the central and peripheral nervous system. In order to communicate each other, both systems must develop in parallel and in coordination. During development, axonal projections from the CNS as well as the PNS must extend over large distances to reach their appropriate target cells. To do so, they read and follow a series of axon guidance molecules. Interestingly, while these molecules play critical roles in guiding developing axons, they have also been shown to be critical in other major neurodevelopmental processes, such as the migration of cortical progenitors. Currently, a major hurdle for brain repair after injury or neurodegeneration is the absence of axonal regeneration in the mammalian CNS. By contrasts, PNS axons can regenerate. Many hypotheses have been put forward to explain this paradox but recent studies suggest that hacking neurodevelopmental mechanisms may be the key to promote CNS regeneration. Here we provide a seminar report written by trainees attending the second Flagship school held in Alpbach, Austria in September 2018 organized by the International Society for Neurochemistry (ISN) together with the Journal of Neurochemistry (JCN). This advanced school has brought together leaders in the fields of neurodevelopment and regeneration in order to discuss major keystones and future challenges in these respective fields.
|
|
| 10. |
- Suárez-Calvet, Marc, et al.
(författare)
-
Novel tau biomarkers phosphorylated at T181, T217 or T231 rise in the initial stages of the preclinical Alzheimer's continuum when only subtle changes in Aβ pathology are detected.
- 2020
-
Ingår i: EMBO molecular medicine. - : EMBO. - 1757-4684 .- 1757-4676. ; 12:12
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In Alzheimer's disease (AD), tau phosphorylation in the brain and its subsequent release into cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood is a dynamic process that changes during disease evolution. The main aim of our study was to characterize the pattern of changes in phosphorylated tau (p-tau) in the preclinical stage of the Alzheimer's continuum. We measured three novel CSF p-tau biomarkers, phosphorylated at threonine-181 and threonine-217 with an N-terminal partner antibody and at threonine-231 with a mid-region partner antibody. These were compared with an automated mid-region p-tau181 assay (Elecsys) as the gold standard p-tau measure. We demonstrate that these novel p-tau biomarkers increase more prominently in preclinical Alzheimer, when only subtle changes of amyloid-β (Aβ) pathology are detected, and can accurately differentiate Aβ-positive from Aβ-negative cognitively unimpaired individuals. Moreover, we show that the novel plasma N-terminal p-tau181 biomarker is mildly but significantly increased in the preclinical stage. Our results support the idea that early changes in neuronal tau metabolism in preclinical Alzheimer, likely in response to Aβ exposure, can be detected with these novel p-tau assays.
|
|
