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Updated: Jun 8, 2026
Modulation of Tau Subcellular Localization as a Tool to Investigate the Expression of Disease-related Genes
Published on: December 20, 2019
Diagnosis of progressive supranuclear palsy: can measurement of tau forms help?
H Bea Kuiperij1, Marcel M Verbeek
1Department of Neurology, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Alzheimer Centre Nijmegen, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, PO Box 9101, 6500 HB Nijmegen, the Netherlands. b.kuiperij@neuro.umcn.nl
Abstract:
Recently, a new assay for the differential diagnosis of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) was proposed. It was shown that the ratio of 33/55 kDa tau forms in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was specifically reduced in PSP CSF. We aimed to reproduce these results, but were not able to detect the tau forms in CSF. We demonstrate that i) CSF total tau levels are too low to be detected by the published protocol, and ii) the described 33 and 55 kDa bands are likely the heavy and light chains of IgG used in the assay. We conclude that more sensitive techniques are needed to measure tau forms in CSF.
