TROY, N.Y. — Tangles of misfolded tau proteins in the brain are closely associated with memory loss in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. In order for this tau pathology to spread, the protein must interact with heparan sulfate, a sugar molecule found on the surface of neurons.
Armed with evidence that a specific site — known as the 3-O-sulfate group — on heparan sulfate is critical to the transfer, a research program funded by the NIH’s National Institute of Aging is scrutinizing the interactions between heparan sulfate and tau, determining how misfolded tau spreads in the brain, and developing strategies to block it.
“Understanding how tau is moving from cell to cell will give us a clear target for research and drug development,” said Chunyu Wang, a professor of biological sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a member of the Rensselaer Center…
