Local interactions between tau and synapses in dementia

Award Number
216977/Z/19/Z
Status / Stage
Completed
Dates
1 July 2019 -
31 August 2019
Duration (calculated)
00 years 01 months
Funder(s)
Wellcome Trust
Funding Amount
£0.00
Contracted Centre
University of Bristol
Principal Investigator
Miss Phoebe Kennedy
WHO Catergories
Models of Disease
Understanding Underlying Disease
Disease Type
Alzheimer's Disease (AD)

CPEC Review Info
Reference ID292
ResearcherReside Team
Published12/06/2023

Data

Award Number216977/Z/19/Z
Status / StageCompleted
Start Date20190701
End Date20190831
Duration (calculated) 00 years 01 months
Contracted CentreUniversity of Bristol
Funding Amount£0.00

Abstract

Tauopathies are neurodegenerative diseases, most often linked to dementia, that are associated with aberrant forms of the cytoskeletal protein, tau. In many tauopathies, but particularly Alzheimer’s Disease, synapse dysfunction is a prominent feature early in disease progression. In mouse models of tauopathy, pathological tau is localised to postsynaptic sites in many, but not all, synapses. We hypothesise that it is the local presence of tau at individual synapses that drives their dysfunction and that variation in synaptic localisation of tau underlies differences in the apparent pathology of different synapses, even within the same neuron. To address this hypothesis, using a mouse model of neurodegenerative tauopathy, we will image tau localisation and the structure of dendritic spines, which are the sites of excitatory synapses, using a new super-resolution imaging technique called Expansion Microscopy. High resolution structural measures afforded by this type of analysis will establish whether dendritic spine structure is altered when aberrant tau is located nearby. Since dendritic spine structure is intimately linked to synapse function, any relationship between tau and structure would lead to testable hypotheses linking local tau to individual synaptic dysfunction.