An article published in the journal Nature Medicine describes that tau protein isoforms of subjects with Huntington’s disease are similar to those produced in known tauopathies (frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, progressive supranuclear palsy and corticobasal degeneration)
This results in an imbalance in the tau protein isoforms and deposits of hyper-phosphorylated tau in neurons and glial cells in the brain.
The study was developed by CIBERNED researchers from the Center for Molecular Biology Severo Ochoa (CSIC-UAM) in collaboration with the group CIBERNED at IDIBELL and VU University Medical Center, in Amsterdam.
As explained by one of the co-authors of the study, Isidre Ferrer, director of the Institute of Neuropathology IDIBELL and Chair at the University of Barcelona « in Huntington the same abnormal protein deposits of hyper-phosphorylated tau dont occur like in neurons in known tauopathies, but we could identify alterations in the different isoforms of tau protein in the brain and thus demonstrate that tau is also impaired in Huntington and in murine models of Huntington’s disease.
Source: University of Barcelona