Northwestern scientists find tau protein hotspot; chemical tag stops clumps growing

Northwestern scientists found a hydrophobic tau protein hotspot where water molecules help trigger interactions that drive harmful clump formation. Buried deep in the brain, a protein that normally helps sustain nerve cells can be a source of trouble. When tau proteins change from their normal shape, they can start to cling together, creating tangled structures linked to Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, an online report from Northwestern University says. Scientists have long grappled with the question of how these misshapen proteins can persuade healthy ones to do the same. Now, researchers at Northwestern University may have discovered a key vulnerability in that process, a single molecular hotspot that could offer a new target for future treatments.Finding the trigger for tau clumpingThe study was conducted by scientists at Northwestern University in collaboration with colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who investigated the misfolding of tau proteins and their assembly into long, threadlike structures called fibrils. The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, identified that there is a particular region ...