Setó‐Salvia N, Esteras N, de Silva R, de Pablo‐Fernandez E, Arber C, Toomey CE, Polke JM, Morris HR, Rohrer JD, Abramov AY, Patani R, Wray S, Warner TT. Elevated 4R-tau in astrocytes from asymptomatic carriers of the MAPT 10+16 intronic mutation.
J Cell Mol Med 2022;
26:1327-1331. [PMID:
34951131 PMCID:
PMC8831975 DOI:
10.1111/jcmm.17136]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2021] [Revised: 11/11/2021] [Accepted: 12/03/2021] [Indexed: 01/23/2023] Open
Abstract
The microtubule-associated protein tau gene (MAPT) 10+16 intronic mutation causes frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) by increasing expression of four-repeat (4R)-tau isoforms. We investigated the potential role for astrocytes in the pathogenesis of FTLD by studying the expression of 4R-tau. We derived astrocytes and neurons from induced pluripotent stem cells from two asymptomatic 10+16 carriers which, compared to controls, showed persistently increased 4R:3R-tau transcript and protein ratios in both cell types. However, beyond 300 days culture, 10+16 neurons showed less marked increase of this 4R:3R-tau transcript ratio compared to astrocytes. Interestingly, throughout maturation, both 10+16 carriers consistently displayed different 4R:3R-tau transcript and protein ratios. These elevated levels of 4R-tau in astrocytes implicate glial cells in the pathogenic process and also suggests a cell-type-specific regulation and may inform and help on treatment of pre-clinical tauopathies.
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