Basic Science and Pathogenesis

Among the earliest signs of preclinical Alzheimer's disease (AD) are navigation impairments and the presence of abnormal hyperphosphorylated tau (aTau) proteins in the entorhinal cortex (EC), a brain region that encodes space and movement. As AD progresses and memory impairments develop, EC aTau spreads to the subiculum (Sub), a key region for memory encoding and recall. To better understand the impact of aTau progression from EC to Sub on neurophysiology and memory we designed a mouse model that seeds human mutant tau in Sub projecting EC neurons.

To best approximate the spread of aTau in early AD, we injected a cre-dependent virus that selectively deposits mutant human tau (AAV2/9-Flex-P301L-GFP) in a transgenic mouse line that limits cre expression to EC layers 2/3 cells (tg(Oxr-1cre)C14Stl/J). By injecting into Sub, only cre+ cells projecting to Sub are initially transfected by the virus. Male and female mice were given between 4 weeks to 12 months for aTau to express. Mice were then tested on spatial memory (water maze), temporal-association & contextual memory (trace-fear conditioning), and anxiety (elevated plus maze) tasks. Task performance was compared to cre -/- littermates who received the same virus injections but did not express the tau virus.

Our viral strategy effectively limited transfection to Sub projecting EC layer 2/3 neurons. Immunofluorescence imaging confirmed that both human tau (AT7) and phosphorylated tau (AT8) were present in the EC-Sub circuit as early as 4 weeks post injection. Mice with hyperphosphorylated tau in Sub projecting EC neurons showed impaired trace memory (p = 0.027) while spatial and contextual memory remained intact. There were no differences in anxiety levels.

We have shown that selective delivery of human mutant tau to the EC-Sub circuit impairs temporal-association memory. These data are in line with previous reports of circuit inactivations disrupting association memory, and offer a new model to probe specific memory loss and guide interventions to slow aTau spread and rescue memory.