| First Author | Puzzo D | Year | 2020 |
| Journal | J Clin Invest | Volume | 130 |
| Issue | 9 | Pages | 4831-4844 |
| PubMed ID | 32544084 | Mgi Jnum | J:302504 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6508180 | Doi | 10.1172/JCI137040 |
| Citation | Puzzo D, et al. (2020) Tau is not necessary for amyloid-beta-induced synaptic and memory impairments. J Clin Invest 130(9):4831-4844 |
| abstractText | The amyloid hypothesis posits that the amyloid-beta (Abeta) protein precedes and requires microtubule-associated protein tau in a sort of trigger-bullet mechanism leading to Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology. This sequence of events has become dogmatic in the AD field and is used to explain clinical trial failures due to a late start of the intervention when Abeta already activated tau. Here, using a multidisciplinary approach combining molecular biological, biochemical, histopathological, electrophysiological, and behavioral methods, we demonstrated that tau suppression did not protect against Abeta-induced damage of long-term synaptic plasticity and memory, or from amyloid deposition. Tau suppression could even unravel a defect in basal synaptic transmission in a mouse model of amyloid deposition. Similarly, tau suppression did not protect against exogenous oligomeric tau-induced impairment of long-term synaptic plasticity and memory. The protective effect of tau suppression was, in turn, confined to short-term plasticity and memory. Taken together, our data suggest that therapies downstream of Abeta and tau together are more suitable to combat AD than therapies against one or the other alone. |
