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Self-assembly of the microtubule-associated protein tau into neurotoxic oligomers, fibrils, and paired helical filaments, and cell-to-cell spreading of these pathological tau species are critical processes underlying the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease and other tauopathies. Modulating the self-assembly process and inhibiting formation and spreading of such toxic species are promising strategies for therapy development. A challenge in investigating tau self-assembly in vitro is that, unlike most amyloidogenic proteins, tau does not aggregate in the absence of posttranslational modifications (PTM), aggregation inducers, or preformed seeds. The most common induction method is addition of polyanions, such as heparin; yet, this artificial system may not represent adequately tau self-assembly in vivo, which is driven by aberrant phosphorylation and other PTMs, potentially leading to in vitro data that do not reflect the behavior of tau and its interaction with modulators in vivo. To tackle these challenges, methods for in vitro phosphorylation of tau to produce aggregation-competent forms recently have been introduced ( Despres et al. ( 2017 ) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. , 114 , 9080 - 9085 ). However, the oligomerization, seeding, and interaction with assembly modulators of the different forms of tau have not been studied to date. To address these knowledge gaps, we compared here side-by-side the self-assembly and seeding activity of heparin-induced tau with two forms of in vitro phosphorylated tau and tested how the molecular tweezer CLR01, a negatively charged compound, affected these processes. Tau was phosphorylated by incubation either with activated extracellular signal-regulated kinase 2 or with a whole rat brain extract. Seeding activity was measured using a fluorescence-resonance energy transfer-based biosensor-cell method. We also used solution-state NMR to investigate the binding sites of CLR01 on tau and how they were impacted by phosphorylation. Our systematic structure-activity relationship study demonstrates that heparin-induced tau behaves differently from in vitro phosphorylated tau. The aggregation rates of the different forms are distinct as is the intracellular localization of the induced aggregates, which resemble brain-derived tau strains suggesting that heparin-induced tau and in vitro phosphorylated tau have different conformations, properties, and activities. CLR01 inhibits aggregation and seeding of both heparin-induced and in vitro phosphorylated tau dose-dependently, although heparin induction interferes with the interaction between CLR01 and tau.

Native top-down mass spectrometry (MS) and ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) were applied to characterize the interaction of a molecular tweezer assembly modulator, CLR01, with tau, a protein believed to be involved in a number of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease. The tweezer CLR01 has been shown to inhibit aggregation of amyloidogenic polypeptides without toxic side effects. ESI-MS spectra for different forms of tau protein (full-length, fragments, phosphorylated, etc.) in the presence of CLR01 indicate a primary binding stoichiometry of 1:1. The relatively high charging of the protein measured from non-denaturing solutions is typical of intrinsically disordered proteins, such as tau. Top-down mass spectrometry using electron capture dissociation (ECD) is a tool used to determine not only the sites of post-translational modifications but also the binding site(s) of non-covalent interacting ligands to biomolecules. The intact protein and the protein-modulator complex were subjected to ECD-MS to obtain sequence information, map phosphorylation sites, and pinpoint the sites of inhibitor binding. The ESI-MS study of intact tau proteins indicates that top-down MS is amenable to the study of various tau isoforms and their post-translational modifications (PTMs). The ECD-MS data point to a CLR01 binding site in the microtubule-binding region of tau, spanning residues K294-K331, which includes a six-residue nucleating segment PHF6 (VQIVYK) implicated in aggregation. Furthermore, ion mobility experiments on the tau fragment in the presence of CLR01 and phosphorylated tau reveal a shift towards a more compact structure. The mass spectrometry study suggests a picture for the molecular mechanism of the modulation of protein-protein interactions in tau by CLR01. Graphical Abstract ᅟ.

Phosphorylation of the neuronal microtubule-associated Tau protein plays a critical role in the aggregation process leading to the formation of insoluble intraneuronal fibrils within Alzheimer's disease (AD) brains. In recent years, other posttranslational modifications (PTMs) have been highlighted in the regulation of Tau (dys)functions. Among these PTMs, the O -β-linked N-acetylglucosaminylation ( O -GlcNAcylation) modulates Tau phosphorylation and aggregation. We here focus on the role of the PHF-1 phospho-epitope of Tau C-terminal domain that is hyperphosphorylated in AD (at pS396/pS404) and encompasses S400 as the major O -GlcNAc site of Tau while two additional O -GlcNAc sites were found in the extreme C-terminus at S412 and S413. Using high resolution NMR spectroscopy, we showed that the O -GlcNAc glycosylation reduces phosphorylation of PHF-1 epitope by GSK3β alone or after priming by CDK2/cyclin A. Furthermore, investigations of the impact of PTMs on local conformation performed in small peptides highlight the role of S404 phosphorylation in inducing helical propensity in the region downstream pS404 that is exacerbated by other phosphorylations of PHF-1 epitope at S396 and S400, or O -GlcNAcylation of S400. Finally, the role of phosphorylation and O -GlcNAcylation of PHF-1 epitope was probed in in-vitro fibrillization assays in which O -GlcNAcylation slows down the rate of fibrillar assembly while GSK3β phosphorylation stimulates aggregation counteracting the effect of glycosylation., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Cantrelle, Loyens, Trivelli, Reimann, Despres, Gandhi, Hackenberger, Landrieu and Smet-Nocca.)

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy can be used as an analytical tool to investigate posttranslational modifications of protein. NMR is a valuable tool to map the interaction regions of protein partners. Here, we present protocols that have been developed in the course of our studies of the neuronal Tau protein. Tau is found aggregated in the neurons of Alzheimer's disease patients. Development of the disease is accompanied by increased, abnormal phosphorylation and acetylation of Tau. We have used NMR to investigate how these posttranslational modifications of Tau affect the interactions with its partners. We present here detailed protocols of in vitro phosphorylation of Tau by recombinant kinase, ERK2, or kinase activity of rat brain extracts, and acetylation by recombinant Creb-binding protein (CBP) acetyltransferase. The analytical characterization of the modified Tau by NMR spectroscopy is additionally described.