We initially sought to define the tau seeding unit that would trigger intracellular aggregation upon direct delivery to the cell interior. We had previously observed that a tau trimer is the minimal assembly size that triggers endocytosis and intracellular seeding (Mirbaha et al., 2015). These experiments depended on spontaneous cell uptake, since no lipofectamine was added to the reactions. A prior study had also indicated the role of disulfide linkages in promoting tau aggregation, potentially by dimer formation (Friedhoff et al., 1998). Thus, for our initial studies we engineered and purified full-length (FL) tau monomer that lacks any internal cysteines due to alanine substitutions (C299A and C322A), termed tau (2A). FL tau (2A) cannot self-associate based on disulfide linkages, which helped prevent the formation of cryptic dimers that could have confounded our studies. These substitutions did not affect tau purification, heparin-induced fibrillization, and sonication protocols, which we performed as described previously (Mirbaha et al., 2015). We treated fibril preps with sonication, prior to isolation of recombinant FL tau (2A) assemblies of various sizes by size exclusion chromatography (SEC) (Mirbaha et al., 2015). In parallel, we also studied FL wild type (WT) tau. We purified unfibrillized recombinant FL tau (2A) monomer by SEC (Figure 1A), and isolated SEC fractions of sonicated fibrils that contained putative monomer, dimer, trimer and ~10 mer (Figure 1B).

Figure 1

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Data for M_i and M_s seeding activity in cells and in vitro.

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To test the seeding activity of the tau preparations, we used a previously described ‘biosensor’ cell reporter line (Holmes et al., 2014). These cells stably express 4R tau repeat domain (RD) containing the disease-associated P301S mutation. All cells express 4R-RD-Cyan fluorescent protein and 4R-RD-yellow fluorescent protein (RD-CFP/YFP). Exogenously applied seeds induce intracellular aggregation with resultant fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between CFP and YFP that can be measured via flow cytometry (Holmes et al., 2014; Furman et al., 2015). The degree of aggregation is scored using ‘integrated FRET density’ (IFD), which is the product of the percent positive cells and the mean fluorescence intensity of FRET-positive cells, and from this we determine a titer of tau seeding activity (Holmes et al., 2014). Lipofectamine directly transduces tau assemblies across the plasma membrane and increases the assay’s sensitivity by approximately 100-fold. Upon incubation with Lipofectamine, we were surprised to observe seeding by monomer and larger assemblies alike, whether FL WT or 2A. (Figure 1C,D). Epifluorescence microscopy confirmed the presence of intracellular inclusions after FL WT tau monomer seeding (Figure 1D). We termed the inert monomer ‘M_i,’ and the seed-competent monomer ‘M_s.’ To rule out higher order assemblies of tau within the putative monomer fraction, immediately prior to the seeding assay we passed fractions through a 100 kDa cutoff filter to eliminate anything larger than a monomer. While monomer fraction retained ~80% of seeding activity, only ~20% of dimer seeding activity remained, and ~1–2% of trimer seeding activity remained (Figure 1E). To exclude an artifact related to Lipofectamine transduction into cells, we tested FL (2A) tau preparations in an in vitro seeding assay that induces fibril formation by full-length tau (0N4R) through iterative polymerization and agitation steps (Morozova et al., 2013). M_i had no intrinsic seeding activity. However M_s induced amyloid formation, albeit more slowly than trimer or unfractionated fibrils (Figure 1F). This slow aggregation process may reflect inefficient fibril assembly, and a predominance of small nucleated assembly events from the added monomer. We concluded that the M_s fraction contained seeding activity that enabled intracellular aggregation of tau RD-CFP/YFP in cells, or full-length tau in vitro. Finally, we tested whether contamination of very small amounts of seeds could somehow account for the seeding activity in monomer fractions by carrying out dose-response titrations of the various preparations. M_s had an EC₅₀ of ~10 nM (Figure 1G), which was very similar to dimer and trimer (Figure 1H). Thus to account for signal observed in the seeding assay, contamination of an otherwise inert monomer with larger seed-competent assemblies would have to be substantial.

We tested for obvious structural differences between M_i and M_s using CD spectroscopy, which revealed none (Figure 2A). We re-tested the assemblies using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), which measures particle diffusion through a fixed volume. As we previously observed (Mirbaha et al., 2015), we accurately estimated the units of small assemblies (≤10 mer), but not larger assemblies (>10 mer) (Figure 2B). In an additional effort to detect cryptic multimers within the M_s preparation, we used double-label FCS. We engineered a cysteine onto the amino terminus of FL tau (2A) to enable its covalent modification (Cys-Tau (2A)). We then prepared Cys-tau (2A) fibrils, or monomer, and labeled them simultaneously with Alexa488 (green) and tetramethylrhodamine (TMR) via maleimide chemistry. We carried out sonication and purification by SEC as before, isolating assemblies of various sizes. We evaluated each for cross-correlation between red and green signal, which indicates the presence of at least two tau molecules in a particle. We analyzed >300 events for each assembly. When we evaluated M_i and M_s, 100% of events in each case showed a diffusion time consistent with a tau monomer (Figure 2C,D). Furthermore, we observed no cross-correlation between red and green signal, indicating that neither preparation had detectable multimeric assemblies (Figure 2C,D,H). By contrast, when we evaluated larger species such as dimer, trimer, or ~10 mer, we observed longer diffusion times consistent with the predicted assembly sizes, and significant cross-correlation values (Figure 2E–H), consistent with the presence of multimers. The FCS studies supported the conclusion that M_i and M_s are comprised predominantly of monomer.

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Data for CD and FCS of M_i and M_s.

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To rule out cross-contamination of assemblies within the SEC column, we tested its ability to exclude larger seeds from the monomer fraction. We first isolated M_s and larger assemblies from a sonicated fibril preparation (Figure 3, Group 1). Removing the fraction that contained M_s (B5), we then pooled the remaining fractions, and spiked them with M_i. We re-fractionated the material on SEC to isolate the monomer in fraction B5 again (Figure 3, Group 2). As previously observed, M_s and other fibril-derived assemblies in Group 1 had seeding activity (Figure 3). However, in Group 2, while we observed seeding activity in larger assemblies, the monomer (which we take to be M_i) re-isolated from a pool of larger fibril-derived assemblies had no seeding activity (Figure 3). This confirmed that larger, seed-competent assemblies do not appreciably contaminate the monomer fraction during SEC.

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Data for fidelity of SEC purification of assemblies.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36584.008

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Although prior controls had essentially excluded the presence of tau multimers in the sample, we used heat-mediated dissociation of oligomeric assemblies as an additional test for the possibility that M_s in fact represents a uniquely compact multimer that somehow purifies as a monomer. We collected M_s by SEC, and heated the sample to 95°C for 3 hr. We then re-isolated the sample via SEC. We carried out the same procedure with trimer and ~20 mer. In each case, we tested the resultant fractions for seeding activity. In the first instance, after heating we re-isolated M_s purely as monomer that retained virtually all of its seeding activity (Figure 4A). The trimer assembly (fraction B8) broke down to smaller assemblies, predominantly monomer, each of which retained seeding activity (Figure 4B). The ~20 mer (fraction A5) was largely stable following heat treatment, and retained its seeding activity (Figure 4C). These experiments highlighted the lability of small multimers (i.e. trimer), and a surprising persistence of seeding activity in heat-treated monomer.

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Data for heat denaturation of assemblies.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36584.010

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In the preceding experiment M_s retained seeding activity even after 3 hr at 95°C, a condition sufficient to dissociate trimers. These experiments implied that M_s consists of a stable seed-competent structure, resistant to heat denaturation. Consequently, we used more nuanced heat denaturation of seeding activity to probe the relative stabilities of M_s, dimer, trimer, and larger assemblies of FL WT tau. We first isolated tau monomer, dimer, trimer,~10 mer, and ~20 mer on SEC. We then incubated the various assemblies at a range of temperatures (65, 75, 85, 95°C) and times (0, 3, 12, 18, 24, 48, 72 hr) before measuring seeding activity. Lower temperatures only slightly reduced seeding activity, whereas exposure of M_s, dimer, and trimer to temperatures ≥ 85°C for 18–24 hr eliminated it at roughly the same rate for each (Figure 4D–G). By contrast, the seeding activities of ~10 mer and ~20 mer were relatively heat-resistant (Figure 4D–G). This was consistent with our prior observations that tau seeds derived from cultured cells are resistant to boiling (Sanders et al., 2014). To determine a putative energy barrier between M_s and M_i, we evaluated the denaturation data for M_s by integrating the data from the prior experiments (Figure 4H). We compared two models for the transition of M_s to an inert form (which we assumed to be an unfolding reaction): a unimodal unfolding model vs. a multimodal model that assumes intermediate seed-competent states. The unimodal model did not account for the data at early time points, which indicated a lag phase in denaturation, whereas the multimodel model performed better (Figure 4H). The lag phase in denaturation implied an ensemble of seed-competent states that define M_s, each separated by smaller energy barriers. Using the multimodal model, we calculated the barrier to conversion of M_s to an inert form to be ~78 kcal/mol.

Aggregation of M_i in vitro is relatively slow, requires high protein concentration (micromolar), and polyanions such as heparin (Goedert et al., 1996; Pérez et al., 1996). Based on the seeding activity of M_s, we predicted that it might more readily self-associate. We incubated FL WT tau M_i and M_s alone, or dimer or trimer at equimolar ratios, keeping total particle concentration constant at 500 nM. We then monitored change in assembly size over 24 hr. M_i, dimer, and trimer showed no evidence of self-association in this timeframe (Figure 5A,C,D). By contrast, when incubated alone, M_s readily formed larger assemblies (Figure 5B). When we incubated M_i with dimer or trimer, we saw no change in the assembly population over 24 hr (Figure 5E,F). By contrast, when we mixed M_s with dimer or trimer we observed a growth of larger assemblies with a concomitant reduction in dimer and trimer peaks (Figure 5G,H). We conclude that M_i, dimer, and trimer do not form larger assemblies at an appreciable rate, while M_s self-assembles and adds on to larger assemblies.

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Data for M_s self-assembly.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36584.012

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The preparation of M_s based on sonication of fibrils raised two important issues. First, it left uncertain whether M_i could be converted to a seed-competent form without previously being incorporated into a fibril. Second, we observed that sonication could create fragments from tau monomer that might potentially act as seeds (Figure 6—figure supplement 1). Consequently, we used heparin to induce the formation of M_s, thereby avoiding sonication. We exposed FL WT tau to heparin for varying amounts of time before purifying different assembly sizes by SEC and testing for seeding activity. After 15 min of heparin exposure, we detected low but significant amounts of seed-competent monomer, and much fewer larger assemblies (Figure 6A). Crosslinking of purified, heparin-induced M_s revealed no evidence of multimers or an increase in fragments (Figure 6—figure supplement 1). Recombinant monomer not treated with heparin had no seeding activity at any time point (Figure 6A). At longer heparin treatment times (1 hr, 4 hr) monomer fractions as well as larger assemblies all had strong seeding activity (Figure 6A). M_s derived from heparin exposure was relatively resistant to heat denaturation at 95°C, albeit less so than fibril-derived M_s (Figure 6B). Relative seeding efficiency of the various forms of M_s as well as sonicated or unsonicated fibrils were relatively similar (Figure 6C). We noted also that sonication of M_i and purification by SEC did not produce any seed-competent species, eliminating the possibility that small assemblies of sonication-induced fragments accounted for seeding activity of M_s (Figure 6C). These experiments also indicated that it is not necessary for tau monomer to be part of a fibril or to be exposed to sonication to produce an efficient seed-competent monomer. Heparin, presumably by catalyzing a transition from an inert to a seed-competent form, enables this critical conformational change.

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Data for heparin induced transition from M_i to M_s.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36584.015

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To probe the structures of M_i and M_s, we employed cross-linking with mass spectrometry (XL-MS), which uses DSS-mediated crosslinking of proteins (monomer or larger assembly) followed by trypsin proteolysis, enrichment of resultant fragments by SEC, and identification by capillary liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. This method creates restraints for structural models of single proteins or protein complexes (Leitner et al., 2012; Lasker et al., 2012; Joachimiak et al., 2014). We assigned the complex fragment ion spectra to the corresponding peptide sequences using xQuest (Rinner et al., 2008). Denaturation of recombinant tau with 8M urea prior to crosslinking produced no intramolecular cross-links (data not shown), indicating that crosslinks observed under native conditions represented local structure. We studied M_i, fibril-derived M_s and heparin-derived M_s using XL-MS. Short reaction times ensured the production of only intra-molecular crosslinks as monitored by SDS-PAGE (Figure 6—figure supplement 1). XL-MS for each sample was carried out in triplicate , and only considering consensus crosslinks present in each replicate . M_i exhibited crosslink patterns which indicated local and distant intramolecular contacts (Figure 7A). In M_s, we observed a consistent crosslinking of K150 with K254, K267, K274 or K280 all located between RD 1 and 2. These crosslinks tracked exclusively with M_s, both fibril- or heparin-derived (Figure 7B,C). We never observed these crosslinks in M_i. To test the relationship of this crosslink with seed function, we carried out heat denaturation at 95°C for 3 or 24 hr, followed by XL-MS. Heating samples results in a decrease in crosslink frequency (Figure 7—figure supplement 1). Importantly, however, we observed a parallel persistence of this crosslink pattern with seeding activity (Figure 7B,C). The XL-MS results indicate a distinct structure and seeding activity for M_s that is surprisingly resistant to denaturation at 95°C.

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Summary of triplicate XL-MS datasets.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36584.018

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Summary of consensus XL-MS datasets.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36584.019

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Given our experiments with recombinant M_i and M_s, we wished to test whether similar structures exist in vivo. We extracted AD and control brain samples using a dounce homogenizer to avoid liberating significant monomer from fibrils. We immunoprecipitated tau using an antibody that targets the amino-terminus (HJ8.5), and resolved the eluates by SEC, followed by ELISA to determine tau levels (Figure 8A,B). Tau from control brain purified in the monomer fraction (Figure 8A), while tau from AD brain distributed across multiple fractions, corresponding to monomer and larger assemblies (Figure 8B). When we tested each fraction for seeding activity, we observed none in any control brain fraction (Figure 8C). However, all AD fractions contained seeding activity, including monomer (Figure 8C). To exclude the possibility that the brain homogenization protocol liberated M_s from neurofibrillary tangles, we spiked tau KO mouse brain samples with recombinant fibrils in vitro, or fibril-derived M_s. We then used dounce homogenization and immuno-purification as for human brain. We evaluated the seeding activity in total lysate, supernatant following 10,000 x g centrifugation, and SEC fractions (Figure 8D). We readily observed monomer seeding activity in tau KO brain spiked with M_s, however we observed none in fractions that had been spiked with fibrils (Figure 8D). The homogenization protocol for human brain was thus unlikely to have liberated M_s from pre-existing tau fibrils.

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Data characterization of patient samples.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36584.022

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Summary of patient-derived XL-MS datasets.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36584.023

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To test for self-association of control-derived M_i vs. AD-derived M_s, we purified these species by SEC, and divided each monomer fraction in two. We snap-froze one fraction and incubated the other overnight at room temperature. Then, we again resolved the assemblies via SEC and tested each fraction for seeding activity. Control monomer was inert, even after incubation at RT (Figure 8E). AD-derived M_s that was purified, frozen, and re-purified by SEC exhibited seeding activity exclusively in the monomer fraction (Figure 8E). By contrast, AD-derived M_s incubated at RT formed seed-competent assemblies of increasing size (Figure 8E). We concluded that, as for other types of M_s, AD-derived M_s exhibited an intrinsic capacity for self-association into seed-competent assemblies. To compare structures of control vs. AD-derived monomer via XL-MS, we isolated tau from brains of 3 AD patients and three age-matched controls. In control-derived monomer, we observed no evidence of the crosslink that marked M_s (Figure 8G). However, in each AD-derived M_s sample we observed a discrete set of crosslinks between aa150 and aa259-290 (Figure 8H). This essential finding did not change, no matter what method of homogenization we used (Figure 8—figure supplement 1), and implied a common structure that unifies ensembles of seed-competent tau monomer, whether produced in vitro or in vivo.

Based on intramolecular FRET and electron paramagnetic resonance spin labeling Mandelkow et al. have previously proposed native tau structure to be in a ‘paperclip’ configuration, with the C-terminus folded over the RD (Jeganathan et al., 2006). To understand how core elements of tau control its aggregation, we employed Rosetta to create models of tau structure for M_i and M_s using restraints from the crosslink patterns and length of the DSS crosslinker. The overall energetics and radii of gyration in the models were comparable for M_i and M_s (Figure 9—figure supplement 1), indicating global structural similarity. We thus focused on the RD, given its high frequency of intramolecular crosslinks, and primary role in aggregation (Figure 9A). We observed differences in the predicted interface structure between R1/R2 and R2/R3 which encode two core VQIINK and VQIVYK motifs critical for tau amyloid formation (von Bergen et al., 2000; von Bergen et al., 2001). The M_i structural model predicted masking of VQIINK and VQIVYK sequences in compact ‘hairpin’ structures (Figure 9B), similar to the structure of microtubule-bound tau previously determined by NMR (Kadavath et al., 2015). By contrast, within M_s the model predicted relative exposure of VQIINK and VQIVYK (Figure 9C). We next evaluated XL-MS-guided predictions of patient-derived tau, although lower sample quality and fewer high confidence crosslinks (possibly due to protein heterogeneity) limited our accuracy. As for recombinant protein, M_i from control patients also featured VQIINK/VQIVYK sequences in a less accessible configuration (Figure 9D). In AD-derived M_s, long-range contacts from aa150 to R2 influenced the model, and predicted an exposed configuration of VQIINK/VQIVYK (Figure 9E). With important caveats, the models guided by XL-MS imply that the general difference between M_i and M_s derives from relative shielding vs. exposure of VQIINK/VQIVYK sequences.

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Models of M_i, M_s, control and AD conformations of tau.

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Rosetta energy and radius of gyration for structural ensembles.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36584.027

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As an orthogonal comparison of the structures of M_i and M_s, we used limited proteolysis with trypsin. M_i or M_s (heparin-exposed) that had been passed through a 100kD filter immediately prior were subjected to a fine time course of limited proteolysis (Figure 10A). Each sample was prepared in triplicate with matched protein quantities to facilitate label-free analysis. We then used mass spectrometry to evaluate the production of tau fragments and mapped these to specific cleavage sites (Figure 10B). We identified 60 peptides common across the two conditions (Figure 10—figure supplement 1). To summarize enrichment of peptides across the two datasets we compared the ratio of averaged kinetic profiles (Figure 10—figure supplement 1). Differences between the M_i and M_s primarily localized to the RD (Figure 10—figure supplement 1). In M_i, an R1R2 fragment was enriched (Figure 10C) while only the R2 portion of that fragment was enriched in M_s (Figure 10D). We observed similar patterns in R2R3 (Figure 10F,G). By contrast, other domains outside of these regions had similar cleavage kinetics in M_i and M_s (Figure 10E,H, Figure 10—figure supplement 1). Mapping these cleavage sites onto our structural models revealed that proteolysis in M_i preferentially occurred outside the hairpin that includes VQIINK and VQIVYK amyloid sequences, while cleavage in M_s occurred adjacent to the amyloid sequences (Figure 10I,J). The cleavage patterns were thus consistent with structural models of VQIINK and VQIVYK regions, which predicted relative inaccessibility of hairpin-associated sequences in M_i, and accessibility in M_s.

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Summary of peptides and their abundance identified in the triplicate M_i and M_s proteolysis experiment.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36584.030

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Summary of ratiometric analysis of M_i and M_s peptide abundance.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36584.031

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We utilized several forms of recombinant tau. Full-length (FL), wild-type (WT) tau contains two cysteines that create disulfide bridges and could complicate isolation of monomer. Thus in addition to preparing FL WT tau (2N4R) as previously described (Frost et al., 2009b), we purified FL tau (2N4R) that contains two cysteine/alanine substitutions (C291A, C322A), termed tau (2A). We used the 2A and WT forms of tau in our initial studies, before exclusively studying WT. Additionally, for fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), we engineered a single cysteine at the amino terminus (Cys-Tau (2A)) for labeling via maleimide chemistry. These modified proteins have fibrillization and seeding properties similar to FL WT tau. To initiate fibrillization, we incubated 8 µM tau in 10 mM HEPES, 100 mM NaCl, and 8 µM heparin (1:1 ratio of FL tau to heparin) at 37°C for 72 hr without agitation. For cysteine labeling, we incubated 200 µL of 8 µM fibrils (monomer equivalent) and monomer with 0.025 mg of Alexa Fluor-488 (AF488) C5-maleimide (Invitrogen) and 80 µM Tetramethylrhodamine-5-maleimide (Sigma-Aldrich) overnight at 4°C with gentle rotation. We quenched excess dye with 10 mM DTT for 1 hr at room temperature. For limited heparin exposure, recombinant tau at 1 µM was incubated with heparin at 1 µM for 15 min, 1 hr and 4 hr at 37°C before purification of monomer via Superdex 200 column.

We employ the following terminology:

M_i: This refers to ‘inert’ tau monomer, whether recombinant or derived from control brain.

M_s: This refers to ‘seed competent’ monomer, whether derived from sonicated fibrils, heparin-treated monomer, or AD brain.

We sonicated labeled and non-labeled fibrils using a Q700 Sonicator (QSonica) at a power of 100–110 watt (Amplitude 50) at 4°C for 3 hr. Samples were then centrifuged at 10,000 x g for 10 min and 1 mL of supernatant was loaded into a Superdex 200 Increase 10/300 GL column (GE Healthcare) and eluted in PBS buffer at 4°C. After measuring the protein content of each fraction with a Micro BCA assay (Thermo Scientific, Waltham MA) and/or fluorescence using a plate reader (Tecan M1000), we aliquoted and stored samples at −80°C or immediately used them in biochemical studies and cell seeding assays. Each aliquot was thawed immediately before use. The molecular weight/radius of proteins in each fraction was estimated by running gel filtration standards (Bio-Rad): Thyroglobulin (bovine) 670 kDa/8.5 nm; γ-globulin (bovine) 158 kDa/5.29 nm; Ovalbumin (chicken) 44 kDa/3.05 nm; myoglobin (horse) 17 kDa/2.04 nm; and vitamin B₁₂1.35 kDa/0.85 nm. In a prior publication (Mirbaha et al., 2015), Figure 1E, we demonstrated through use of crosslinking with SDS-PAGE that the SEC protocol used in this work reliably purifies monomer, dimer, and trimer.

Monomer, dimer and trimer fractions were passed through a 100 kDa MWCO filter (Corning) as instructed by the manufacturer (centrifuged at 15,000 x g for 15 min at 4°C). Filtered material was immediately collected and used in seeding assay along with the non-filtered samples of the same fraction at a final concentration of 100 nM, or analyzed by limited proteolysis. Protein concentration was determined before and after filtration by determining absorption at 205 nm.

Circular dichroism (CD) measurements were performed at 25°C on a Jasco J-815 spectropolarimeter using a 0.1 cm optical path length. 200 μL of 2 μM _Ms or M_i monomer was dialyzed onto 10 mM NaP and the spectra were measured at 0.10 nm intervals, with a band width of 1.0 nm, and scan speed of 10 nm/min. The spectrum represents the average of 4 scans in the range of 195 to 250 nm.

A total tau ‘sandwich’ ELISA was performed similarly to that described previously (Acker et al., 2013). Antibodies were kindly provided by Dr. Peter Davies (Albert Einstein College of Medicine). 96-well round-bottom plates (Corning) were coated for 48 hr at 4°C with DA-31 (aa 150–190) diluted in sodium bicarbonate buffer (6 µg/mL). Plates were rinsed with PBS three times, blocked for 2 hr at room temperature with Starting Block (Pierce), and rinsed with PBS five additional times. SEC fractions were diluted in SuperBlock solution (Pierce; 20% SuperBlock, diluted in TBS), and 50 µL sample was added per well. DA-9 (aa 102–150) was conjugated to HRP using the Lighting-Link HRP Conjugation Kit (Innova Biosciences), diluted 1:50 in SuperBlock solution, and 50 µL was added per well (15 µg/mL). Sample +detection antibody complexes were incubated overnight at 4°C. Plates were washed with PBS nine times with a 15 s incubation between each wash, and 75 µL 1-Step Ultra TMB Substrate Solution (Pierce) was added. Plates were developed for 30 min, and the reaction quenched with 2M sulfuric acid. Absorbance was measured at 450 nm using an Epoch plate reader (BioTek). Each plate contained a standard curve, and all samples were run in triplicate.

FCS measurements were conducted on a Confocal/Multiphoton Zeiss LSM780 Inverted microscope (Carl Zeiss-Evotec, Jena, Germany), using a 40X water immersion objective as previously described (Chattopadhyay et al., 2002). Fluorescently labeled tau from SEC fractions (in PBS) was excited at 488 nm and 561 nm for 30 s, recording 10 times (Buschmann et al., 2003). The data analysis was performed with Origin 7.0 (OriginLab, Northampton, MA).

Stable cell lines were plated at a density of 35,000 cells per well in a 96-well plate. After 18 hr, at 60% confluency, cells were transduced with protein seeds. Transduction complexes were made by combining [8.75 μL Opti-MEM (Gibco) +1.25 μL Lipofectamine 2000 (Invitrogen)] with [Opti-MEM + proteopathic seeds] for a total volume of 20 μL per well. Liposome preparations were incubated at room temperature for 20 min before adding to cells. Cells were incubated with transduction complexes for 24 hr. Biosensor cells were confirmed as HEK293T by PowerPlex sequencing. Mycoplasma contamination was ruled out by PCR analysis using VenorGem (Sigma).

Cells were harvested with 0.05% trypsin and fixed in 2% paraformaldehyde (Electron Microscopy Services) for 10 min, then resuspended in flow cytometry buffer. The MACSQuant VYB (Miltenyi) was used to perform FRET flow cytometry. To measure CFP and FRET, cells were excited with a 405 nm laser, and fluorescence was captured with 405/50 nm and 525/50 nm filters, respectively. To measure YFP, cells were excited with a 488 nm laser and fluorescence was captured with a 525/50 nm filter. To quantify FRET, we used a gating strategy similar to that previously described (Holmes et al., 2014). The integrated FRET density (IFD), defined as the percentage of FRET-positive cells multiplied by the median fluorescence intensity of FRET-positive cells, was used for all analyses. For each experiment,~20,000 cells were analyzed in triplicate. Analysis was performed using FlowJo v10 software (Treestar).

Recombinant full length (0N4R) tau monomer was purified as previously described (Morozova et al., 2013) at 1 mg/mL in BRB80 buffer (80 mM PIPES, 1 mM MgCl2, 1 mM EGTA, pH 6.8 with 0.3M NaCl) and boiled at 100°C for 5 min with 25 mM β-mercaptoethanol. The tau protein solution was then rapidly diluted 1:5 and cooled to 20°C in PBS, pH 7.4, to a final concentration of 0.2 mg/mL of tau and 5 mM β-mercaptoethanol. This solution was supplemented with Thioflavin T (ThT) to a final concentration of 20 µM and filtered through a sterile 0.2 µm filter. Reaction sizes of 195 µL were aliquoted from the prepared protein stock and thoroughly mixed with 5 µL of each sample at 100 nM monomer equivalent, or 5 µL of buffer control. For each sample, three different technical replicates were prepared. An opaque 96-well plate was prepared with a 3 mm glass bead added to each well to increase agitation. The recombinant tau solution was added to the plate in 200 µl reaction volumes. The plate was sealed with sealing tape to prevent evaporation and incubated in the plate reader (SpectraMax M2) at 37°C. ThT fluorescence was monitored over time with excitation and emission filters set to 444 nm and 485 nm, respectively. Fluorescence readings were taken every 5 min, with agitation for 5 s before each reading.

0.5 g frontal lobe sections from AD patients at late Braak stage (VI) and age-matched controls lacking evident tau pathology were gently homogenized at 4°C in 5 mL of TBS buffer containing protease inhibitor cocktails (Roche) using a dounce homogenizer. Samples were centrifuged at 21,000 x g for 15 min at 4°C to remove cellular debris. Supernatant was partitioned into aliquots, snap frozen and stored at −80°C. Immunopurification was performed with HJ8.5 anti-tau antibody (Yanamandra et al., 2013) at a ratio of 1:50 (1 µg mAb per 50 µg of total protein), incubating overnight at 4°C while rotating. To each 1 mL of mAb/brain homogenate we added 200 µL of a 50% slurry protein G-agarose beads (Santa-Cruz). We washed the bead with TBS buffer before overnight incubation at 4°C. We then centrifuged the complexes at 1000 x g for 3 min and discarded the supernatant. Beads were washed with Ag/Ab Binding Buffer, pH 8.0 (Thermo Scientific) three times. Tau bound to the beads was eluted in 100 µL low pH elution buffer (Thermo Scientific), incubated at room temperature for 7 min, followed by neutralization with 10 µL Tris-base pH 8.5. This elution step was repeated once more with 50 µL elution buffer and 5 µL Tris-base pH 8.5 for a total of 165 µL. Samples were then centrifuged at 10,000 x g for 10 min, and the supernatant loaded onto a Superdex 200 Increase 10/300 GL column (GE Healthcare). SEC fractions were frozen at −80°C after evaluation of protein content by Micro BCA assay (Thermo Scientific).

To compare different extraction methods, fresh frozen frontal lobe section from an AD patient brain was suspended in TBS buffer containing protease inhibitor cocktails (Roche) at 10% w/vol in four portions. Samples were homogenized using three different devices: a dounce homogenizer, probe sonicator (Omni International), and tissue homogenizer (Power Gen 125, Fischer Scientific). We also included one more condition of homogenizing with tissue homogenizer followed by probe sonication for 10 min. Samples were centrifuged at 21,000 x g for 15 min at 4°C to remove cellular debris. Supernatant was partitioned into aliquots followed by immunopurification.

To control for release of tau M_s from fibrils in AD brain, a tau KO Mouse brain was divided into two halves, followed by spiking one half with recombinant fibrils and the other with fibril-derived M_s, both at final concentration of 10 µM monomer equivalent. Each was dounce homogenized, centrifuged, immunoprecipitated with HJ8.5 anti-tau antibody, and fractionated by SEC with identical techniques as used for human brain processing. SEC fractions were then used in seeding experiments.

We analyzed the IFD from measurements of temperature-dependent seeding using global fits to a proposed unimolecular heat denaturation reaction. This analysis rests on the Arrhenius equation Laidler, 1984:

where k_U is the unfolding rate constant, E is the activation energy, R is the gas constant, T is the temperature, and A is the pre-exponential factor. For the unimodal model, the data were fit globally to:

Here, t is the heat denaturation time and τ = 1/k_U is the unfolding time. A second, multimodal model was deployed to account for discrepancies in the early time points which appeared to suggest the presence of a lag phase in denaturation. In this model, the data were fit globally to

where $l_t$ is the lag time given by

and B is a pre-exponential factor. We used the Akaike information criterion (AIC) to evaluate the best model as it quantifies the trade-off between goodness of fit and the complexity of the model (von Bergen et al., 2001). For least squares model fitting, AIC can be reduced to:

where p is the number of parameters in the model, n is the number of observations, and RSS is the residual sum of squares. The preferred model is the one with the minimum AIC. Here, we find AIC = 123 for the unimodal model and AIC = 105 for the multimodal model, which suggests the multimodal model is a better description of the denaturation data.

M_i and M_s tau samples were prepared as described above. In all cases, tau preparations were crosslinked at a total protein concentration of ~0.1 mg/mL using 10–20 µg starting material. The crosslinking buffer was 50 mM HEPES-KOH (pH 7.4) containing 150 mM NaCl and 1 mM DTT. The crosslinking reaction was initiated by adding disuccinimidyl suberate (DSS) stock solution (25 mM DSS-d₀ and –d₁₂, Creative Molecules) in DMF to a final concentration of 1 mM. Samples were incubated at 37°C for 1 min. For the heparin-derived M_s sample, heparin sulfate (Sigma) was added to a final concentration of 5 µM, followed by 1 mM DSS and the samples were incubated for 1 min at 37°C. Excess reagent was quenched by addition of ammonium hydrogen carbonate to 50 mM and incubation at 37°C for 30 min, and then flash frozen at −80°C. Absence of higher molecular species was confirmed by SDS-PAGE and coomassie stain. After the quenching step, samples were evaporated to dryness in a vacuum centrifuge and resuspended in 8M urea. Proteins were reduced with 2.5 mM TCEP (37°C, 30 min) and alkylated with 5 mM iodoacetamide (30 min, room temperature, protected from light). The sample solutions were diluted to 1M urea with 50 mM ammonium hydrogen carbonate and trypsin (Promega) was added at an enzyme-to-substrate ratio of 1:50. Proteolysis was carried out at 37°C overnight followed by acidification with formic acid to 2% (v/v). Samples were then purified by solid-phase extraction using Sep-Pak tC18 cartridges (Waters) according to standard protocols. Samples were fractionated by size exclusion chromatography (SEC) on a Superdex Peptide column as described elsewhere (Leitner et al., 2012). Two fractions collected from SEC were evaporated to dryness and reconstituted in water/acetonitrile/formic acid (95:5:0.1, v/v/v) to a final concentration of approximately 0.5 µg/µl. 2 µL each were injected for duplicate LC-MS/MS analyses on an Eksigent 1D-NanoLC-Ultra HPLC system coupled to a Thermo Orbitrap Fusion Lumos Tribrid system (Thermo Scientific). Peptides were separated on self-packed New Objective PicoFrit columns (11 cm x 0.075 mm I.D.) containing Magic C₁₈ material (Michrom, 3 µm particle size, 200 Å pore size) at a flow rate of 300 nL/min using the following gradient. 0–5min = 5 %B, 5–95min = 5–35%B, 95–97 min = 35–95%B and 97–107min = 95 %B, where A = (water/acetonitrile/formic acid, 97:3:0.1) and B = (acetonitrile/water/formic acid, 97:3:0.1). The mass spectrometer was operated in data-dependent mode by selecting the five most abundant precursor ions (m/z 350–1600, charge state 3 + and above) from a preview scan and subjecting them to collision-induced dissociation (normalized collision energy = 35%, 30 ms activation). Fragment ions were detected at low resolution in the linear ion trap. Dynamic exclusion was enabled (repeat count 1, exclusion duration 30 s).

Thermo. raw files were converted into the open. mzXML format using msconvert (proteowizard.sourceforge.net) and analyzed using an in-house version of xQuest (Rinner et al., 2008). Spectral pairs with a precursor mass difference of 12.075321 Da were extracted and searched against the respective FASTA databases containing Tau (TAU_HUMAN P10636-8).xQuest settings were as follows: Maximum number of missed cleavages (excluding the crosslinking site)=2, peptide length = 5–50 aa, fixed modifications = carbamidomethyl Cys (mass shift = 57.021460 Da), mass shift of the light crosslinker = 138.068080 Da, mass shift of mono-links = 156.078644 and 155.096428 Da, MS (Chirita et al., 2005) tolerance = 10 ppm, MS (Kar et al., 2011) tolerance = 0.2 Da for common ions and 0.3 Da for crosslink ions, search in ion-tag mode.For brain-derived samples we also included variable modifications including: Methionine oxidation = 15.99491, Ser/Thr/Tyr phosphorylation = 79.96633 and lysine ubiquitylation = 114.043 with nvariable_mod = 1. Post-search manual validation and filtering of the recombinant samples was performed using the following criteria: xQuest score >16, mass error between −4 and +7 ppm, %TIC >10, and a minimum peptide length of six aa. In addition, at least four assigned fragment ions (or at least three contiguous fragments) were required on each of the two peptides in a crosslink. False discovery rates (FDR) for the identified crosslinks were estimated using xprophet (Rinner et al., 2008). For the recombinant samples, M_i and M_s, the FDR ranged from 6–10%. Post-search manual validation of the brain-derived samples was performed using the following criteria: xQuest score >7, mass error between −5 and +7 ppm, %TIC >10, and a minimum peptide length of six aa. In addition, at least four assigned fragment ions (or at least three contiguous fragments) were required on each of the two peptides in a crosslink. The FDRs for the brain samples were much higher and ranged between 20–25%. For triplicate datasets (N = 3) corresponding to the M_i and M_s boiling time course we computed consensus crosslink profiles enforcing that at least two of the three datasets contain a crosslink. Crosslink data were visualized using Xvis (Grimm et al., 2015). Average contact distance was computed by averaging the sequence separation between crosslink pairs in a given dataset. See Figure 7—source datas 1 and 2.

High confidence crosslink pairs identified above were used to generate an ensemble of possible structures using a Rosetta protocol employing the crosslink pairs as structural restraints. The integration of XL-MS derived restraints have been previously used to refine structural models of large complexes (Leitner et al., 2012) and simpler heterodimeric complexes (Kahraman et al., 2013). Based on distance distributions of crosslink pairs mapped onto crystallographic structures we set a lower bound of 15 Å and an upper bound of 25 Å for lysine Cα pairs in our simulations. Importantly, in our simulations we weighted the constraint pairs as to allow some distances above the upper bound limit. The fragment library was supplanted by using chemical shifts derived from fibrillar tau ssNMR assignments (bmrb entry 17920) using csrosetta (Lange et al., 2012). We generated 1000 models for each of the four XL-MS datasets on a high performance cluster (biohpc.swmed.edu). Representative structures were selected according to the low Rosetta score and radius of gyration. All plots were generated with gnuplot. All figures were generated using Pymol. See Figure 9—source data 1.

AbinitioRelax.default.linuxgccrelease -in:file:fasta tau.fasta -file:frag3 tau.frags3.dat -file:frag9 tau.frags9.dat -nstruct 1000 -abinitio::increase_cycles 0.5 -abinitio::relax -score::weights score13_env_hb -abinitio::rg_reweight 0.5 -abinitio::rsd_wt_helix 0.5 -abinitio::rsd_wt_loop 0.5 -disable_co_filter true -out:file:silent csrosetta.out -constraints:cst_fa_file tau.cst -constraints:cst_file tau.cst -constraints:cst_weight 0.1 -constraints:cst_fa_weight 0.1 -loopfcst::coord_cst_weight 10.0

Group mean values were analyzed by one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc significant differences test using GraphPad prism five software. Data in text and figures are represented as mean ± SD.

Biological Replicates: This refers to separately generated samples, e.g. analysis of samples from different individuals, in which the input represents a distinct biological source, or analysis of fibril preparations formed independently.

Technical Replicates: This refers to independently analyzed samples in which each would be expected otherwise to be identical, e.g. multiple wells in which the same cell line was treated with the same sample, or when a single brain is broken up into three fractions for identical analyses.

Outliers: We did not exclude outliers in any case.

Inclusion/Exclusion of data: In no case did we include or exclude data.

Figure 1: Biochemical purification of M_i and M_s and seeding into cells was carried out ~50 times over 3 years. In Figure 1 the data shown is a representative dataset for M_i and M_s on SEC, seeding, microscopy and seeding following filtration. In vitro M_s and M_i aggregation was done once (using N = 3 independent technical replicates per fraction studied). Data from the titration of M_i and M_s seeding in cells is from a single representative experiment (from at least three independent studies), using technical triplicates for each sample. Primary data is available in Figure 1—source data 1.

Figure 2: CD experiments were carried out with three biological replicates. A single representative experiment is shown, and the data for M_i and M_s is an average of 4 technical replicates. The FCS experiment was repeated three times with biological replicates. A single representative scan is shown. Primary data is available in Figure 2—source data 1.

Figure 3: Seeding activity was measured in technical triplicates. Primary data is available in Figure 3 source data 1.

Figure 4: Heat denaturation was done in two biological replicates, for which a representative experiment is shown. Seeding activity was performed in technical triplicates. Primary data is available in Figure 4—source data 1.

Figure 5: Stability of monomers and assemblies in solution was tested in a single experiment, with 32 s analyses. Primary data is available in .

Figure 6: This single experiment is representative of at least three distinct biological replicates. Seeding activity was determined in technical triplicates (N = 3). Primary data is available in Figure 6—source data 1.

Figure 6—figure supplement 1: This experiment was performed in three biological replicates. A representative gel is shown.

Figure 7: Each XL-MS dataset was collected in biological triplicate across the different conditions (M_i: Recombinant; M_s: Fibril-derived; M_s: Heparin-derived). The figure indicates consensus crosslinks across triplicates for each condition. Primary data is available in Figure 7—source data 1, and Figure 7—source data 2.

Figure 7—figure supplement 1: This represents a histogram of consensus pairs across triplicates for each condition depicted in Figure 7. Primary data is available in Figure 7—source data 1, and Figure 7—source data 2.

Figure 8: SEC was performed at least three times, and a single representative experiment is shown. The seeding assay was performed in technical triplicate for each fraction. Spiking of tau KO brain with fibrils or M_s was performed once, and the SEC was performed once, with the seeding assay performed in technical triplicate. XL-MS was performed in biological triplicate for Controls vs. AD. Primary data is available in Figure 8—source datas 1 and 2.

Figure 8—figure supplement 1: XL-MS data from different methods of homogenization was performed in four individual experiments on a single biological sample. Primary data is available primary data available in .

Figure 9: Rosetta simulations produced models from 1000 independent trajectories across four different conditions: M_i, M_s, Control, AD. The pymol session is available in Figure 9—source data 1.

Figure 9—figure supplement 1: Plot of the energetics of the ensemble of 1000 Rosetta models built for each condition. Primary data is available in Figure 9—source data 2.

Figure 10: Proteolysis experiments were carried out for M_i and M_s in technical triplicate for each time point. Primary data is available in Figure 10—source data 1.

Figure 10—figure supplement 1: Summary data from Figure 10, comparing peptide abundance between Mi and Ms is represented as technical triplicates for each data point presented. Primary data is available in Figure 10 source data 2.

Limited proteolysis of M_i and M_s using trypsin was carried out in triplicate (N = 3) in 50 mM TEAB at 25°C. The enzyme to tau ratio was adjusted to 1:100 (wt/wt) with around 11 ug of M_i/M_s present initially. The total reaction mixture volume was 60 µl. Aliquots were withdrawn from the reaction mixture at 1, 5, 15, 30, 60 and 120 min by using 10 µL of 10% trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) to quench the reaction (PH <3). The trypsin-digested peptides were then desalted using an Oasis HLB plate (Waters) and eluted with 100 µL 80% acetonitrile (ACN) containing 0.1% TFA. The solvent was evaporated in a SpeedVac concentrator and the dried samples were reconstituted in 20 µl of 2% acetonitrile, 0.1% TFA and 2 µl solution was used for by LC/MS/MS analysis, the analysis were performed on an Orbitrap Elite mass spectrometer (Thermo Electron) coupled to an Ultimate 3000 RSLC-Nano liquid chromatography systems (Dionex). Samples were injected onto a 75 µm i.d., 15 cm long EasySpray column (Thermo Scientific), and eluted with a gradient from 1 to 28% buffer B over 60 min. Buffer A contained 2% (v/v) ACN and 0.1% formic acid in water, and buffer B contained 80% (v/v) ACN, 10% (v/v) trifluoroethanol, and 0.1% formic acid in water. The mass spectrometer operated in positive ion mode with a source voltage of 2.8kV and an ion transfer tube temperature of 275°C. MS scans were acquired at 240,000 resolution in the Orbitrap and up to 14 MS/MS spectra were obtained in the ion trap for each full spectrum acquired using collision-induced dissociation (CID), with charge one ions rejected. Dynamic exclusion was set for 15 s after an ion was selected for fragmentation. Raw MS data files were searched against the appropriate protein database from Uniprot, and reversed decoy sequences appended (Elias and Gygi, 2010) by using Protein Discovery 2.2 (Thermo Fisher Scientific). Fragment and precursor tolerances of 20ppm and 0.6 Da were specified, and 12 missed cleavages were allowed. Carbamidomethylation of Cys was set as a fixed modification and oxidation of Met was set as a variable modification. Label-free quantitation of proteins across samples was performed. Average peptide intensity values were computed for all time points for each peptide across triplicates (N = 3). To estimate differences in kinetic profiles we calculated the median value of each profile and compared the M_i to M_s ratio. See Figure 10—source datas 1 and 2.

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

We thank Peter Davies for generously providing antibody reagents and ELISA protocol guidance. This work was supported by grants from the Tau Consortium and NIH grants awarded to 1R01NS071835 (MID), R01NS089932 (RVP and MID), and the Effie Marie Cain Endowed Scholarship (LAJ). We appreciate the help of the Live Cell Imaging Core Facility administered by Katherine Luby-Phelps, Ph.D., and the Proteomics Core Facility at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. We thank Hilal Lashuel, Ph.D. for critical comments on the manuscript.

1. Received: March 12, 2018
2. Accepted: May 17, 2018
3. Version of Record published: July 10, 2018 (version 1)

© 2018, Mirbaha et al.

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