What are tauopathies?

What are tauopathies?

Tauopathies are neurodegenerative disorders characterized by the deposition of abnormal tau protein in the brain. The spectrum of tau pathologies expands beyond the traditionally discussed disease forms like Pick disease, progressive supranuclear palsy, corticobasal degeneration, and argyrophilic grain disease.

What is the function of tau protein?

Tau is a microtubule-associated protein that stabilizes neuronal microtubules under normal physiological conditions. However, in certain pathological situations, tau protein may undergo modifications, mainly through phosphorylation, that can result in the generation of aberrant aggregates that are toxic to neurons.

What is the key pathological feature of tauopathy?

Tauopathies are neurodegenerative disorders pathologically defined by the presence of intracellular tau-positive inclusions and clinically characterized by dementia and/or parkinsonism.

Is dementia a tauopathy?

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, previously known as “dementia pugilistica,” is a progressive neurodegenerative tauopathy caused by multiple traumatic brain injuries.

Is PSP a tauopathy?

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP; Steele-Richardson-Olszewski syndrome) is a tauopathy with predominant tau pathology and prominent parkinsonism. Although the clinical features are well defined [1], the ‘classical’ picture may represent only a part of the whole disease spectrum.

Is Parkinson’s tauopathy?

Parkinson’s disease (PD) was not initially considered to be a typical tauopathy. However, recent studies have demonstrated increasing evidence of tau pathology in PD. A genome-wide association (GWA) study indicated a potential association between tauopathy and sporadic PD.

Is frontotemporal dementia a tauopathy?

Moreover, it now is known that the most common form of sporadic frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which is characterized by frontotemporal neuron loss, gliosis, and microvacuolar change, also is a tauopathy caused by a loss of tau protein expression.

Is MSA a tauopathy?

Because alpha-synuclein is the predominant protein associated with PD, other Lewy Body disorders, and with multiple system atrophy (MSA), these conditions have been termed synucleinopathies. Similarly, parkinsonisms thought to be related to microtubule-associated protein tau have been termed tauopathies.

What is tauopathy and what causes it?

Tauopathy belongs to a class of neurodegenerative diseases associated with the pathological aggregation of tau protein in neurofibrillary or gliofibrillary tangles in the human brain.

What is the difference between tauopathy and Alzheimer’s disease?

Tauopathies are a group of neurodegenerative disease in which the hallmark is the accumulation of the tau protein into aggregates Alzheimer’s disease is the most common tauopathy and the most prevalent neurodegenerative disease

What are the emerging entities and pathologies of glial tauopathy?

Emerging entities and pathologies include globular glial tauopathies, primary age-related tauopathy, which includes neurofibrillary tangle dementia, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and aging-related tau astrogliopathy.

What is the role of macroautophagy in tauopathy?

In tauopathies, macroautophagy may play a role in the metabolism of abnormal tau. In a cell model of mutated tau, macroautophagy inhibitors dramatically increased soluble and sarkosyl-insoluble levels of mutated tau, which led to enhanced aggregation and cytotoxicity (Wang et al., 2009).