Tau microheterogeneity: an immunological approach with monoclonal antibodies.

The family of tau polypeptides purified from mammalian brain exhibit both extensive heterogeneity and large similarities in their chemical, physical, and functional properties. All the tau isoforms generated at a transcriptional or posttranscriptional level share the property of interacting with tubulin dimers in a specific manner. They strengthen longitudinal interactions between tubulin dimers and thus may stabilize microtubules once they are formed. Mild proteolysis or phosphorylation does not remove but only modulates the tau specific function that is probably related to the conserved sequences of the molecules. Monoclonal antibodies raised against tau were found to recognize epitopes conserved not only between species but also in different tissues. Using indirect immunofluorescence, a specific staining pattern was observed on rat neuronal cells and also on human skin fibroblasts. The same antibodies did not recognize glial cells, suggesting that these cells either do not contain detectable levels of tau or contain tau molecules different from the neuronal ones. These data suggest that tau protein is widely distributed, highly conserved, and may be preferentially associated with special subclasses of microtubules.