We May Finally Understand How the Tangled Proteins in Dementia Cause Cells to Die

New research published in Neuron suggests that sticky tangles of tau protein, a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, consume small molecules of nucleic acid and other proteins that brain cells need to live, reports ScienceAlert . This could help explain certain cellular defects observed in the brain tissue of Alzheimer's sufferers, and it also suggests a common disease pathway linking multiple neurodegenerative disorders. The researchers demonstrated that tau tangles contain conglomerates of RNA that should normally help to produce proteins in the nucleus, not accumulate outside the cell. Tau tangles also interfere with nuclear speckles that help process freshly transcribed RNA before it exits the nucleus en route to becoming a working protein. The researchers saw part of the cell's splicing mechanism sucked out of nuclear speckles and into tau aggregates, which may constitute a deadly disruption for brain cells. "If we can understand what tau does and how it goes bad in disease, we can develop new therapies for conditions that now are largely untreatable," said the University of Colorado Boulder's Roy Parker.