Heparin-induced tau filaments are polymorphic and differ from those in Alzheimer's and Pick's diseases
- MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
Abstract
Assembly of microtubule-associated protein tau into filamentous inclusions underlies a range of neurodegenerative diseases. Tau filaments adopt different conformations in Alzheimer's and Pick's diseases. Here, we used cryo- and immuno- electron microscopy to characterise filaments that were assembled from recombinant full-length human tau with four (2N4R) or three (2N3R) microtubule-binding repeats in the presence of heparin. 2N4R tau assembles into multiple types of filaments, and the structures of three types reveal similar 'kinked hairpin' folds, in which the second and third repeats pack against each other. 2N3R tau filaments are structurally homogeneous, and adopt a dimeric core, where the third repeats of two tau molecules pack in a parallel manner. The heparin-induced tau filaments differ from those of Alzheimer's or Pick's disease, which have larger cores with different repeat compositions. Our results illustrate the structural versatility of amyloid filaments, and raise questions about the relevance of in vitro assembly.
Data availability
EM maps have been submitted to EMDB, under codes 4563, 4564, 4565 and 4566Atomic models have been submitted to PDB under codes 6QJH, 6QJM, 6QJP and 6QJQRaw EM images have been submitted to EMPIAR under codes 10242 and 10243
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Medical Research Council (MC_U105184291)
- Michel Goedert
European Union (Joint Programme- Neurodegeneration Research REfrAME)
- Michel Goedert
Medical Research Council (MC_UP_A025_1013)
- Sjors HW Scheres
European Union (IMPRIND-116060)
- Michel Goedert
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2019, Zhang et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Heparin-induced tau filaments are polymorphic and differ from those in Alzheimer's and Pick's diseases
eLife 8:e43584.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.43584
