Tauopathies are a broad group of neurodegenerative illness that include, but are not limited to, Alzheimers disease. These illness have increased intracellular tau levels, which ultimately becomes toxic to nerve cells and trigger their degeneration. It is vital to understand the procedures by which tau levels are managed in order to develop potent healing techniques for these disastrous illness.
Individuals with Alzheimers disease have misfolded and improperly structured tau proteins in their brains.
Tauopathies: the protein that offers hope.
A mechanism has been discovered that controls cellular levels of tau, a protein whose aberrant build-up is at the root of tauopathies, a class of ravaging neurodegenerative illness.
The finding was found in the lab of Michel Cayouette, director of cellular neurobiology research study at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM) and a medical teacher at the University of Montreal.
The research, which was recently published in the journal Science Advances, shows how the protein known as numb manages intracellular tau levels, making numb a possible restorative representative for tauopathies.
Harmful to neurons
Tauopathies are a broad group of neurodegenerative illness that include, but are not restricted to, Alzheimers illness. These diseases have actually increased intracellular tau levels, which eventually becomes poisonous to nerve cells and trigger their degeneration. It is important to comprehend the procedures by which tau levels are controlled in order to produce powerful healing techniques for these terrible illness.
Marine Lacomme, an associate scientist and lead author of the current work, showed with associates in the IRCMs cellular neurobiology lab that inactivating numb in retinal nerve cells and spinal-cord motor nerve cells accelerated illness progression and neuronal loss. Thus, numb functions as an unfavorable regulator of intracellular tau levels.
These findings led the IRCM team to wonder if, conversely, overexpression of numb could reduce tau levels and act beneficially to slow nerve cell loss.
Dramatic lead to mice
In line with this hypothesis, the researchers observed that overexpression of a particular form of the numb protein called Numb-72 decreased tau levels and decreased the death of retinal nerve cells in animal models of tauopathy.
The outcomes were significant: mice treated with Numb-72 carried out much better in a visual test than unattended mice, revealing not only a slowing down of nerve cell loss however also an improvement in their function.
Although more work is required to take this discovery even more, including checking its possible to slow the degeneration of human nerve cells, the researchers hope that Numb-72 may eventually become a restorative element for the treatment of tauopathies.
Reference: “Numb regulates Tau levels and avoids neurodegeneration in tauopathy mouse designs” by Marine Lacomme, Sarah C. Hales, Thomas W. Brown, Katarina Stevanovic, Christine Jolicoeur, Jenny Cai, Therence Bois, Melissa Desrosiers, Deniz Dalkara and Michel Cayouette, 19 October 2022, Science Advances.DOI: 10.1126/ sciadv.abm4295.
The IRCM groups work is moneyed by the Alzheimer Society of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the IRCM Foundation.