Structural mapping techniques distinguish the surfaces of fibrillar 1N3R and 1N4R human tau

The rigid core of intracellular tau filaments from Alzheimer's disease (AD), Pick's disease (PiD), and Corticobasal disease (CBD) brains has been shown to differ in their cryo-EM atomic structure. Despite providing critical information on the intimate arrangement of a fraction of htau molecule within the fibrillar scaffold, the cryo-EM studies neither yield a complete picture of tau fibrillar assemblies structure nor contribute insights into the surfaces that define their interactions with numerous cellular components. Here, using proteomic approaches such as proteolysis and molecular covalent painting, we mapped the exposed amino acid stretches at the surface and those constituting the fibrillar core of in vitro-assembled fibrils of human htau containing one N-terminal domain and three (1N3R) or four (1N4R) C-terminal microtubule-binding repeat domains as a result of alternative splicing. Using limited proteolysis, we identified the proteolytic fragments composing the molecular "bar-code" for each type of fibril. Our results are in agreement with structural data reported for filamentous tau from AD, PiD, and CBD cases predigested with the protease pronase. Finally, we report two amino acid stretches, exposed to the solvent in 1N4R not in 1N3R htau, which distinguish the surfaces of these two kinds of fibrils. Our findings open new perspectives for the design of highly specific ligands with diagnostic and therapeutic potential.