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Short Communication |




From the Department of Neuropathology,*
Faculty of
Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; the Laboratory of
Molecular and Cellular Pathology,
School of
Medicine, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan; the Netherlands Brain
Bank,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands; the
Departments of Clinical Genetics §
and
Neurology,
Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The
Netherlands; and Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology
(CREST),||
Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST),
Kawaguchi, Japan
| Abstract |
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| Introduction |
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One speculation about the pathogenic mechanism of FTDP-17 is that most exonic mutations may reduce the affinity of tau for MTs, leading to their destabilization, and the resultant cytosolic free tau becomes highly phosphorylated and aggregates into PHF-like fibrils, which may in turn exert neurotoxicity. In all intronic and some exonic mutations, four-repeat tau is selectively deposited in affected brains.6,9 However, this kind of information is not available for any of the exonic mutations; we do not know whether mutant tau is preferentially deposited in brains with exonic mutations. We have, therefore, analyzed the proportion of mutant to wild-type tau in the soluble and insoluble fractions of FTDP-17 brains with R406W mutation (numbered according to the 441-residue isoform). In addition, we have examined by immunofluorescence microscopy, using site-specific antibodies, whether the wild-type and mutant tau colocalize or whether either tau is predominant in NFTs. The R406W mutation also has an unusual characteristic, in that the mutant tau is very little phosphorylated on Ser-396 and -404 within transfected cells and the cell-free system.10-12 Thus, we have investigated whether the mutant tau (if any in the Sarkosyl-insoluble fraction) is hyperphosphorylated, like the wild-type tau in PHFs in AD brains.
| Materials and Methods |
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Brain tissues from two R406W patients (Patient 1, 70 years old, and Patient 2, 71 years old)13,14 were obtained through a rapid autopsy program of the Netherlands Brain Bank (average postmortem delay, 6 hours). The two patients had received thorough clinical examination, and the severity of the dementia was estimated according to the Reisberg scale.15 At autopsy, the brain was removed and macroscopically examined, followed immediately by dissection of the various areas according to a protocol. The dissected blocks were either fixed in 10% formalin or kept at -80°C until use. The additional tissue sections were from a R406W patient in a different family, who has already been reported by Reed et al.16 AD brains were kindly provided by Dr. Dennis J. Selkoe.
Tissue Fractionation
Brain tissues were homogenized in Tris-saline (TS; 50 mmol/L Tris-HCl, 150 mmol/L NaCl, pH 7.6) containing a cocktail of protease inhibitors as described previously.17 The homogenates were centrifuged at 540,000 x g for 20 minutes, and the supernatants (TS-soluble fraction) were obtained. After precipitation of crude tau with 50% saturated ammonium sulfate, half the amount of crude tau was treated with 10 U/ml of Escherichia coli alkaline phosphatase (type III, Sigma, St. Louis, MO) at 67°C for 3 hours in 50 mmol/L Tris-HCl (pH 8.3) containing protease inhibitors. Sarkosyl-insoluble pellets were prepared from TS-insoluble pellets as described previously (Sarkosyl-insoluble fraction).17
Purification of PHF-Tau
The PHF-tau-rich fraction was prepared from TS-insoluble pellets according to the procedure developed by Greenberg and Davies.18 After sucrose density-gradient centrifugation, the 35%/50% interface containing PHF-like fibrils was carefully aspirated and pelleted by brief centrifugation. The pellet was solubilized with 6 mol/L guanidine hydrochloride (GuHCl) and carboxymethylated with iodoacetate after reduction. After clearing by brief centrifugation, crude PHF-tau was further purified on an Aquapore RP300 column (2.1 x 30 mm; Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA) by reverse phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC; Model 1090M; Hewlett-Packard, Waldbronn, Germany). This was done using a linear gradient of 20 to 40% acetonitrile in 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) for 20 minutes at a flow rate of 0.2 ml/minute. The fractions containing full-length PHF-tau were identified by silver staining and Western blotting. For further separation, pooled PHF-tau was rechromatographed on an Aquapore BU300 column (2.1 x 30 mm; Applied Biosystems) with a gradient of 24 to 36% acetonitrile in 0.1% TFA for 30 minutes at a flow rate of 0.2 ml/minute. Soluble tau was purified from the TS-soluble fraction as described previously.17 Recombinant wild-type or mutant tau was expressed in E. coli BL21(DE3) and purified as described previously.5
Proteolytic Digestion and Mass Spectrometry
After dephosphorylation, purified PHF-tau was digested in 100 mmol/L Tris-HCl (pH 9.0) with Achromobacter lyticus protease I (API) at an enzyme to substrate ratio of 1:100 at 37°C for 16 hours. The generated peptides were fractionated by RP-HPLC on a Superspher RP-Select B column (2 x 125 mm, Merck, Darmstadt, Germany) using a gradient of 0 to 48% acetonitrile in 0.1% TFA for 24 minutes at a flow rate of 0.2 ml/minute. Analysis of the peptides was performed by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry on Voyager-DERP (PerSeptive Biosystems, Framingham, MA) as described previously.19
Antibodies
Site-specific polyclonal antibodies against wild-type and mutant tau were raised against synthetic 14-mer peptides conjugated with KLH: SGDTSPRHLSNVSC (AR406) and SGDTSPWHLSNVSC (AW406). For Western blotting, the antisera (1 µl) were preabsorbed with 10 nmol counterpart-epitope peptide at 37°C for 30 minutes to warrant specificity and used at a dilution of 1:2000. For an immunofluorescence study, the site-specific antibodies were affinity-purified with each corresponding antigen peptide after preabsorption with a counterpart-epitope peptide. Phosphorylation-dependent tau antibodies used were: tau 1 (epitope; nonphosphoSer-199 and -202; Chemicon, Temecula, CA), AT8 (phosphoSer-202 and phosphoThr-205), AT100 (phosphoThr-212 and phosphoSer-214; Innogenetics, Zwijndrecht, Belgium), M4 (phosphoThr-235), C5 (phosphoSer-396),20 PHF1 (phosphoSer-396 and -404),21 and polyclonal AP422 (phosphoSer-422).22
Western Blotting
Western blotting was performed as described previously.23 Bound antibodies were detected by enhanced chemiluminescence (ECL; Amersham, Buckingham, UK).
Semiquantitative Western blotting was performed by several exposures of the ECL film to equalize the signal intensity toward the same amount of authentic recombinant wild-type and mutant tau. ECL bands of interest were quantified with a model GS-700 imaging densitometer on Molecular Analyst Software (Bio-Rad Laboratories, Hercules, CA). When required, dephosphorylation of tau was performed on the membrane, because the phosphorylation was found to affect immunoreactivities for AR406 and AW406 (data not shown).
Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR)
Total RNA was purified from each brain tissue using an SV total RNA isolation system (Promega, Madison, WI). After reverse transcription primed by random hexamers, the cDNA was amplified with the following primer sets: 5'-AATATCACCCACGTCCCTGGCGGAGGAAAT-3' for sense and 5'-ACAAACCCTGCTTGGCCATGGAGGCAGACA-3' for antisense. Each PCR cycle consisted of 30 seconds at 94°C, 1 minute at 65°C, and 1 minute at 72°C. The PCR products were digested with MspI and EcoT14I to distinguish between wild-type and R406W cDNAs. After separation on a 6% acrylamide gel, the bands that visualized with an SYBR Green dye (Molecular Probes, Eugene, OR) were quantified with a FluoroImager (Molecular Dynamics, Sunnyvale, CA).
Immunofluorescence Microscopy
Paraffin-embedded tissue sections were deparaffinized and dipped in formic acid for 4 minutes to enhance the staining for NFTs.24 The sections were then pretreated with alkaline phosphatase before staining with 10 µg/ml of affinity-purified AR406 and AW406 (see above). Bound antibodies were visualized using the avidin-biotin method (Vectastain Elite, Vector Laboratories, Burlingame, CA) with 3,3'-diaminobenzidine as a substrate. For immunofluorescence, purified AR406 and AW406 were labeled with Alexa 488 and Alexa 568 (Alexa Fluor 488 or 568 Protein labeling kit, Molecular Probes), respectively, according to the manufacturers instructions, and used at a concentration of 20 µg/ml. Lipofuscin autofluorescence was blocked by treating sections with 0.1% Sudan black B (Merck) in 70% ethanol for 10 minutes at room temperature.25 Specimens were observed under a Zeiss Axio-skop microscope (Carl Zeiss Inc., Thornwood, NY) and analyzed using a Bio-Rad laser scanning confocal imaging system (Microradiance R2000/AG-2) equipped with the Lasersharp2000 software (Bio-Rad Laboratories).
| Results |
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To distinguish between wild-type and mutant tau in the fractions
of R406W brain, we raised paired antibodies that specifically recognize
either wild-type or mutant tau. After preabsorption with the
counterpart-epitope peptide, AR406 and AW406 reacted exclusively with
R406R (wild-type) and R406W tau (mutant tau), respectively (Figure 1A)
. Using these site-specific
antibodies, we examined tau in the TS-soluble and Sarkosyl-insoluble
fractions of R406W brains. Both AR406 and AW406 labeled to a similar
extent PHF-tau migrating at 6070 kd and a smear23
on a
blot of Sarkosyl-insoluble fraction prepared from frontal cortices,
temporal cortex, and hippocampus (Figure 1B)
. No specific labeling was
found in the fraction from cerebella, which are usually free from NFTs.
In contrast, as expected, only AR406 but not AW406 labeled PHF-tau and
a smear in the Sarkosyl-insoluble fraction of an AD brain. Western
blotting also showed that similar levels of wild-type and R406W tau
were present in the TS-soluble fraction of frontal cortices and
cerebella of R406W brains, when the signal intensities of the
antibodies were normalized using authentic recombinant tau (see
Materials and Methods) (Figure 1C)
. Consistent with this finding,
quantitative RT-PCR showed no significant difference between the mRNA
levels for wild-type and mutant tau in R406W brains (data not shown).
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Because quantification by Western blotting left some ambiguities,
we sought to determine the proportion of wild-type tau to R406W tau in
PHF-tau by protein chemical analysis. When the HPLC profiles of API
digests were compared, the most remarkable difference between the
authentic recombinant wild-type and R406W tau was a shift of the
late-eluting peak in the latter from 22.3 to 23.3 minutes (peaks 3 and
4 in Figure 1D
, respectively). These peaks contained the
carboxy-terminal API peptides (residues 396438; see Figure 1E
)
generated from wild-type and R406W tau, respectively.17
This indicates that the substitution of a hydrophilic amino acid, Arg,
to a hydrophobic aromatic amino acid, Trp, causes a retarded elution of
this particular peptide.
PHF-tau purified from frontal cortices of the R406W brain (Patient 2)
was subjected to API digestion after dephosphorylation. The HPLC
profile of the API digest contained two separate late-eluting peaks
(peaks 1 and 2 in Figure 1D
), the elution positions of which
corresponded exactly to those of the carboxy-terminal peptides from
wild-type and R406W tau, respectively (peaks 3 and 4 in Figure 1D
). The
presence of the wild-type and mutant carboxy-terminal peptides in peaks
1 and 2, respectively, was further confirmed by mass spectrometry
(Figure 1E)
. The similar heights of peaks 1 and 2 indicate that almost
equal amounts of wild-type and R406W tau are incorporated into
Sarkosyl-insoluble PHF-tau. One may argue that Trp has a large UV
absorbance even at 215 nm and the amount of mutant peptide may be
overestimated. Furthermore, the recovery yield might differ between the
wild-type and mutant peptides. However, the peptide maps constructed
from equal amounts (2 µg for each) of recombinant wild-type and R406W
tau showed equivalent peak areas for the carboxy-terminal fragments
(data not shown), an observation that supports the above conclusion.
Wild-Type and Mutant Tau Colocalized in NFTs in R406W Brain
We next immunostained the tissue sections from various regions of
R406W brains using the site-specific antibodies (Figure 2)
. There were a greater number of NFTs
in the sections from Patient 2 than in those from Patient 1, which is
consistent with the result of Western blotting (see Figure 1B
). AR406
and AW406 labeled, to a similar extent, innumerable intracellular NFTs
in neuronal perikarya, but not extracellular NFTs. This contrasted with
robust labeling of extracellular NFTs with a monoclonal antibody to
residues 368386 (data not shown). Presumably, the carboxy-terminal
portion of extracellular NFTs is cleaved up to the locations of the
epitopes for AR406 and AW406.26
Large flame-shaped or
globose NFTs and fine neuropil threads were abundant in layers II, III,
and V in the frontal and temporal cortices (Figure 2, A and B
, and data
not shown). This laminar distribution was less distinct as compared
with that seen in AD brain. Notably, many NFTs were observed in the
dentate gyrus, which is barely affected by AD.
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R406W Tau Is Aberrantly Hyperphosphorylated in PHF-Tau
Although R406W tau is very little phosphorylated on Ser-396 and
-404 in transfected cells,10-12
it remains unclear
whether R406W tau in NFTs in the affected brain is less phosphorylated.
In fact, abundant NFTs in R406W brain were intensely labeled with C5
and PHF1 (data not shown). Taken together, one might reasonably
speculate that wild-type tau rather than mutant tau is preferentially
phosphorylated in NFTs in the R406W brain. To assess the
phosphorylation of R406W tau in vivo, pooled PHF-tau was
rechromatographed with a shallow gradient to obtain a better separation
of wild-type and mutant tau. Western blotting using AR406 and AW406
showed that early-eluting and late-eluting peaks consist largely of
wild-type and R406W tau, respectively (inset in Figure 3A
). A rough estimate of tau amounts
present in each fraction can be made by the labeling with tau 1 after
dephosphorylation (Figure 3B, g)
. PHF-tau in each peak was labeled
intensely with C5 and PHF1, indicating that Ser-396 and -404 of both
mutant and wild-type tau are highly phosphorylated in the PHF-tau from
R406W brains (Figure 3B, d and e)
. Similar results were obtained using
other phosphorylation-dependent antibodies including AT8, AT100, M4,
and APP422 (Figure 3B)
.
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| Discussion |
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In R406W brains, the mutant tau incorporated into PHF-tau was
aberrantly phosphorylated, similar to wild-type tau, whereas the mutant
tau in the TS-soluble fraction was much less phosphorylated than
wild-type tau (Figure 1C)
. The latter observation is consistent with
the previous observations on R406W tau-transfected
cells.10-12
Less phosphorylation of the mutant tau on
Ser-396 and -404 may be due to a restriction imposed by Arg-to-Trp
substitution. When the MT-binding domain of the cytosolic mutant tau is
occupied by tubulin, a large residue (Trp) nearby may cause a
significant restriction to the accessibility of protein kinases to
these sites. Thus, a lesser extent of phosphorylation of the cytosolic
mutant tau (see Figure 1C
) may reflect the presence of abundant tubulin
or MTs and resultant tau-tubulin interaction.
A large discrepancy in the extent of phosphorylation of R406W tau in the TS-soluble versus the Sarkosyl-insoluble fraction is of particular interest. The cytosolic mutant tau is resistant to phosphorylation on Ser-396 and -404, but when the disease process proceeds, the same sites become highly phosphorylated. Presumably, the process of deposition involves a large conformational change on the carboxy terminal to the MT-binding domain of mutant tau. When neurons undergo degeneration, MTs are rapidly lost, and their loss may result in an unfolded conformation in the MT-binding domain and adjacent regions of the mutant tau, which in turn enhances the phosphorylation of mutant tau on Ser-396 and -404 to an extent similar to that found in wild-type tau. At the same time, the absence of tubulin facilitates tau-tau interaction in the MT-binding domain to form fibrils. Thus, hyperphosphorylation of the mutant tau may reflect a loss of MTs from its surrounding.
| Acknowledgements |
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| Footnotes |
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Supported in part by a Research Grant for Longevity Sciences from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Japan.
Accepted for publication October 26, 2000.
| References |
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