Genome-wide identification of genic and intergenic neuronal DNA regions bound by Tau protein under physiological and stress conditions.

Tauopathies such as Alzheimer's Disease (AD) are neurodegenerative disorders for which there is presently no cure. They are named after the abnormal oligomerization/aggregation of the neuronal microtubule-associated Tau protein. Besides its role as a microtubule-associated protein, a DNA-binding capacity and a nuclear localization for Tau protein has been described in neurons. While questioning the potential role of Tau-DNA binding in the development of tauopathies, we have carried out a large-scale analysis of the interaction of Tau protein with the neuronal genome under physiological and heat stress conditions using the ChIP-on-chip technique that combines Chromatin ImmunoPrecipitation (ChIP) with DNA microarray (chip). Our findings show that Tau protein specifically interacts with genic and intergenic DNA sequences of primary culture of neurons with a preference for DNA regions positioned beyond the ±5000 bp range from transcription start site. An AG-rich DNA motif was found recurrently present within Tau-interacting regions and 30% of Tau-interacting regions overlapped DNA sequences coding for lncRNAs. Neurological processes affected in AD were enriched among Tau-interacting regions with in vivo gene expression assays being indicative of a transcriptional repressor role for Tau protein, which was exacerbated in neurons displaying nuclear pathological oligomerized forms of Tau protein.

Prefibrillar Tau oligomers alter the nucleic acid protective function of Tau in hippocampal neurons in vivo.

The accumulation of DNA and RNA oxidative damage is observed in cortical and hippocampal neurons from Alzheimer's disease (AD) brains at early stages of pathology. We recently reported that Tau is a key nuclear player in the protection of neuronal nucleic acid integrity in vivo under physiological conditions and hyperthermia, a strong inducer of oxidative stress. In a mouse model of tauopathy (THY-Tau22), we demonstrate that hyperthermia selectively induces nucleic acid oxidative damage and nucleic acid strand breaks in the nucleus and cytoplasm of hippocampal neurons that display early Tau phosphorylation but no Tau fibrils. Nucleic acid-damaged neurons were exclusively immunoreactive for prefibrillar Tau oligomers. A similar association between prefibrillar Tau oligomers and nucleic acid oxidative damage was observed in AD brains. Pretreatment with Methylene Blue (MB), a Tau aggregation inhibitor and a redox cycler, reduced hyperthermia-induced Tau oligomerization as well as nucleic acid damage. This study clearly highlights the existence of an early and critical time frame for hyperthermia-induced Tau oligomerization, which most likely occurs through increased oxidative stress, and nucleic acid vulnerability during the progression of Tau pathology. These results suggest that at early stages of AD, Tau oligomerization triggers the loss of the nucleic acid protective function of monomeric Tau. This study highlights the existence of a short therapeutic window in which to prevent the formation of pathological forms of Tau and their harmful consequences on nucleic acid integrity during the progression of Tau pathology.

Tau Stabilizes Chromatin Compaction.

An extensive body of literature suggested a possible role of the microtubule-associated protein Tau in chromatin functions and/or organization in neuronal, non-neuronal, and cancer cells. How Tau functions in these processes remains elusive. Here we report that Tau expression in breast cancer cell lines causes resistance to the anti-cancer effects of histone deacetylase inhibitors, by preventing histone deacetylase inhibitor-inducible gene expression and remodeling of chromatin structure. We identify Tau as a protein recognizing and binding to core histone when H3 and H4 are devoid of any post-translational modifications or acetylated H4 that increases the Tau's affinity. Consistent with chromatin structure alterations in neurons found in frontotemporal lobar degeneration, Tau mutations did not prevent histone deacetylase-inhibitor-induced higher chromatin structure remodeling by suppressing Tau binding to histones. In addition, we demonstrate that the interaction between Tau and histones prevents further histone H3 post-translational modifications induced by histone deacetylase-inhibitor treatment by maintaining a more compact chromatin structure. Altogether, these results highlight a new cellular role for Tau as a chromatin reader, which opens new therapeutic avenues to exploit Tau biology in neuronal and cancer cells.

Tau/DDX6 interaction increases microRNA activity.

Tauopathies, such as Alzheimer's disease, are characterized by intracellular aggregates of insoluble Tau proteins. Originally described as a microtubule binding protein, recent studies demonstrated additional physiological roles for Tau. The fact that a single protein can regulate multiple cellular functions has posed challenge in terms of understanding mechanistic cues behind the pathology. Here, we used tandem-affinity purification methodology coupled to mass spectrometry to identify novel interaction partners. We found that Tau interacts with DDX6, a DEAD box RNA helicase involved in translation repression and mRNA decay as well as in the miRNA pathway. Our results demonstrate that Tau increases the silencing activity of the miRNA let-7a, miR-21 and miR-124 through DDX6. Importantly, Tau mutations (P301S, P301L) found in the inherited tauopathies, frontotemporal dementia and parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17, disrupt Tau/DDX6 interaction and impair gene silencing by let-7a. Altogether, these data demonstrated a new unexpected role for Tau in regulating miRNA activity.

In Vivo Hyperthermic Stress Model: An Easy Tool to Study the Effects of Oxidative Stress on Neuronal Tau Functionality in Mouse Brain.

Oxidative damage is an early event in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer disease. To increase oxidative stress in AD-related mouse models is essential to study early mechanisms involved in the physiopathology of these diseases. In this chapter, we describe an experimental mouse model of transient and acute hyperthermic stress to induce in vivo an increase of oxidative stress in the brain of any kind of wild-type or transgenic mouse.

Loss of Tau protein affects the structure, transcription and repair of neuronal pericentromeric heterochromatin.

Pericentromeric heterochromatin (PCH) gives rise to highly dense chromatin sub-structures rich in the epigenetic mark corresponding to the trimethylated form of lysine 9 of histone H3 (H3K9me3) and in heterochromatin protein 1α (HP1α), which regulate genome expression and stability. We demonstrate that Tau, a protein involved in a number of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease (AD), binds to and localizes within or next to neuronal PCH in primary neuronal cultures from wild-type mice. Concomitantly, we show that the clustered distribution of H3K9me3 and HP1α, two hallmarks of PCH, is disrupted in neurons from Tau-deficient mice (KOTau). Such altered distribution of H3K9me3 that could be rescued by overexpressing nuclear Tau protein was also observed in neurons from AD brains. Moreover, the expression of PCH non-coding RNAs, involved in PCH organization, was disrupted in KOTau neurons that displayed an abnormal accumulation of stress-induced PCH DNA breaks. Altogether, our results demonstrate a new physiological function of Tau in directly regulating neuronal PCH integrity that appears disrupted in AD neurons.

A major role for Tau in neuronal DNA and RNA protection in vivo under physiological and hyperthermic conditions.

Nucleic acid protection is a substantial challenge for neurons, which are continuously exposed to oxidative stress in the brain. Neurons require powerful mechanisms to protect DNA and RNA integrity and ensure their functionality and longevity. Beside its well known role in microtubule dynamics, we recently discovered that Tau is also a key nuclear player in the protection of neuronal genomic DNA integrity under reactive oxygen species (ROS)-inducing heat stress (HS) conditions in primary neuronal cultures. In this report, we analyzed the capacity of Tau to protect neuronal DNA integrity in vivo in adult mice under physiological and HS conditions. We designed an in vivo mouse model of hyperthermia/HS to induce a transient increase in ROS production in the brain. Comet and Terminal deoxyribonucleotidyltransferase-mediated deoxyuridine triphosphate nick end labeling (TUNEL) assays demonstrated that Tau protected genomic DNA in adult cortical and hippocampal neurons in vivo under physiological conditions in wild-type (WT) and Tau-deficient (KO-Tau) mice. HS increased DNA breaks in KO-Tau neurons. Notably, KO-Tau hippocampal neurons in the CA1 subfield restored DNA integrity after HS more weakly than the dentate gyrus (DG) neurons. The formation of phosphorylated histone H2AX foci, a double-strand break marker, was observed in KO-Tau neurons only after HS, indicating that Tau deletion did not trigger similar DNA damage under physiological or HS conditions. Moreover, genomic DNA and cytoplasmic and nuclear RNA integrity were altered under HS in hippocampal neurons exhibiting Tau deficiency, which suggests that Tau also modulates RNA metabolism. Our results suggest that Tau alterations lead to a loss of its nucleic acid safeguarding functions and participate in the accumulation of DNA and RNA oxidative damage observed in the Alzheimer's disease (AD) brain.