Potential neuroprotective strategies against tauopathy

Tauopathies are neurodegenerative diseases, including AD (Alzheimer's disease) and FTLD-T (tau-positive frontotemporal lobar degeneration), with shared pathology presenting as accumulation of detergent-insoluble hyperphosphorylated tau deposits in the central nervous system. The currently available treatments for AD address only some of the symptoms, and do not significantly alter the progression of the disease, namely the development of protein aggregates and loss of functional neurons. The development of effective treatments for various tauopathies will require the identification of common mechanisms of tau neurotoxicity, and pathways that can be modulated to protect against neurodegeneration. Model organisms, such as Caenorhabditis elegans, provide methods for identifying novel genes and pathways that are involved in tau pathology and may be exploited for treatment of various tauopathies. In the present paper, we summarize data regarding characterization of MSUT2 (mammalian suppressor of tau pathology 2), a protein identified in a C. elegans tauopathy model and subsequently shown to modify tau toxicity in mammalian cell culture via the effects on autophagy pathways. MSUT2 represents a potential drug target for prevention of tau-related neurodegeneration.