Tau protein tangles in the hippocampus of a person with Alzheimer-related pathologyWIKIMEDIA, PATHO
People with Alzheimer’s have a higher production rate of tau proteins than healthy individuals, according to a study published today (March 21) in Neuron.
While researchers have long known that tau levels are elevated in the brains and cerebrospinal fluid of Alzheimer’s patients, “until this study, we didn’t know if tau production was increased or if clearance was decreased,” coauthor Chihiro Sato, a researcher in neurologist Randall Bateman’s lab at Washington University School of Medicine, says in a statement. “Our results showing that tau production is increased suggest that we might want to target tau production therapeutically.”
Sato, Bateman, and their colleagues measured the turnover rate of tau in the cerebrospinal fluid of people with Alzheimer’s and healthy controls. When they compared the two groups, ...
