Department of Neurology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430060, China.
J Mol Neurosci. 2021 Nov;71(11):2179-2191. doi: 10.1007/s12031-020-01776-5. Epub 2021 Jan 18.
The pathological hallmarks of Parkinson's disease (PD) are the progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra and the formation of Lewy bodies (LBs) in remaining neurons. LBs primarily consist of aggregated α-Synuclein (α-Syn). However, accumulating evidence suggests that Tau, which is associated with tauopathies such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), and argyrophilic grain disease, is also involved in the pathophysiology of PD. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified MAPT, the gene encoding the Tau protein, as a risk gene for PD. Autopsy of PD patients also revealed the colocalization of Tau and α-Syn in LBs. Experimental evidence has shown that Tau interacts with α-Syn and influences the pathology of α-Syn in PD. In this review, we discuss the structure and function of Tau and provide a summary of the current evidence supporting Tau's involvement as either an active or passive element in the pathophysiology of PD, which may provide novel targets for the early diagnosis and treatment of PD.
帕金森病 (PD) 的病理学特征是黑质中多巴胺能神经元的进行性丧失和剩余神经元中路易体 (LB) 的形成。LB 主要由聚集的 α-突触核蛋白 (α-Syn) 组成。然而，越来越多的证据表明，与阿尔茨海默病 (AD)、进行性核上性麻痹 (PSP) 和嗜银颗粒病等tau 病相关的 Tau 也参与了 PD 的病理生理学过程。全基因组关联研究 (GWAS) 确定 MAPT，即编码 Tau 蛋白的基因，是 PD 的风险基因。PD 患者的尸检还揭示了 Tau 和 α-Syn 在 LB 中的共定位。实验证据表明 Tau 与 α-Syn 相互作用，并影响 PD 中 α-Syn 的病理学。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了 Tau 的结构和功能，并总结了目前支持 Tau 作为 PD 病理生理学中主动或被动因素参与的证据，这可能为 PD 的早期诊断和治疗提供新的靶点。
