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Neurodegeneration

Taming tangled tau

Nature volume 547, pages 170–171 (2017)Cite this article

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The protein tau forms abnormal filamentous aggregates called tangles in the brains of people with neurodegeneration. Structures of two such filaments offer pathways to a deeper understanding of Alzheimer's disease. See Article p.185

In the early twentieth century, the German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer reported the presence of 'tangled' intracellular structures in the brain of a person who'd had dementia. The tangles were later found to consist of abnormal aggregates, known as amyloid fibrils, of the protein tau1. Tau amyloid fibrils seem to be at the root of dozens of age-related types of dementia and movement disorders2, most notably Alzheimer's disease. On page 185, Fitzpatrick et al.3 report a crucial step towards understanding tau amyloid fibrils, describing structures for the two types of fibril seen in Alzheimer's disease — paired helical and straight tau filaments.

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Figure 1: Structures of tau protein filaments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. and in the Departments of Biological Chemistry and Chemistry & Biochemistry, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the UCLA-DOE Institute, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, 90095-1570, USA

    David S. Eisenberg & Michael R. Sawaya

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  1. David S. Eisenberg
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  2. Michael R. Sawaya
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Correspondence to David S. Eisenberg or Michael R. Sawaya.

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D.S.E. declares competing financial interests. See go.nature.com/2sxbcx1 for details.

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Alzheimer's disease: Structure of aggregates revealed

Parkinson's disease: Crystals of a toxic core

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Eisenberg, D., Sawaya, M. Taming tangled tau. Nature 547, 170–171 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature23094

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