Acetylated tau inhibits chaperone-mediated autophagy and promotes tau pathology propagation in mice. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Disrupted homeostasis of the microtubule binding protein tau is a shared feature of a set of neurodegenerative disorders known as tauopathies. Acetylation of soluble tau is an early pathological event in neurodegeneration. In this work, we find that a large fraction of neuronal tau is degraded by chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) whereas, upon acetylation, tau is preferentially degraded by macroautophagy and endosomal microautophagy. Rerouting of acetylated tau to these other autophagic pathways originates, in part, from the inhibitory effect that acetylated tau exerts on CMA and results in its extracellular release. In fact, experimental blockage of CMA enhances cell-to-cell propagation of pathogenic tau in a mouse model of tauopathy. Furthermore, analysis of lysosomes isolated from brains of patients with tauopathies demonstrates similar molecular mechanisms leading to CMA dysfunction. This study reveals that CMA failure in tauopathy brains alters tau homeostasis and could contribute to aggravate disease progression.

publication date

  • April 14, 2021

Research

keywords

  • Chaperone-Mediated Autophagy
  • Tauopathies
  • tau Proteins

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC8047017

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 85104435867

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1073/pnas.76.9.4350

PubMed ID

  • 33854069

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 12

issue

  • 1