Nature of Tau-Associated Neurodegeneration and the Molecular Mechanisms.

Neurodegeneration is defined as the progressive loss of structure or function of the neurons. As the nature of degenerative cell loss is currently not clear, there is no specific molecular marker to measure neurodegeneration. Therefore, researchers have been using apoptotic markers to measure neurodegeneration. However, neurodegeneration is completely different from apoptosis by morphology and time course. Lacking specific molecular marker has been the major hindrance in research of neurodegenerative disorders. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder, and tau accumulation forming neurofibrillary tangles is a hallmark pathology in the AD brains, suggesting that tau must play a critical role in AD neurodegeneration. Here we review part of our published papers on tau-related studies, and share our thoughts on the nature of tau-associated neurodegeneration in AD.

神经退行性变被定义为神经元结构或功能的进行性丧失。由于退行性细胞丧失的本质目前尚不清楚，没有特定的分子标志物来衡量神经退行性变。因此，研究人员一直使用凋亡标志物来衡量神经退行性变。然而，从形态学和时间进程来看，神经退行性变与凋亡完全不同。缺乏特定的分子标志物一直是神经退行性疾病研究的主要障碍。阿尔茨海默病（AD）是最常见的神经退行性疾病，tau蛋白积累形成神经原纤维缠结是阿尔茨海默病大脑的一个标志性病理特征，这表明tau蛋白在阿尔茨海默病的神经退行性变中必定起着关键作用。在此，我们回顾了我们已发表的部分关于tau蛋白相关研究的论文，并分享我们对阿尔茨海默病中与tau蛋白相关的神经退行性变本质的思考。