Activity of the poly(A) binding protein MSUT2 determines susceptibility to pathological tau in the mammalian brain
Authors: Timothy J Strovas
Thomas Bird
Aleen Saxton
Rebecca L Kow
Alexandre Amlie-Wolf
Elaine Peskind
Gerard D Schellenberg
Ronald L Klein
Brian Kraemer
Nicole F Liachko
C Dirk Keene
Virginia M Y Lee
Chris Guthrie
Linda Robinson
John Q Trojanowski
Li-San Wang
Pamela McMillan
Nicholas M Kanaan
Murray Raskind
Patricia Szot
Jeanna M Wheeler
Journal: Science Translational Medicine (2019)
Discipline: BIOLOGY & BIOCHEMISTRY
Keywords: Brain lesions; pathological tau; neurodegeneration; Alzheimer's disease; tauopathies
Affiliations: Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center, Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA 98108, USA., Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 98195, USA., Division of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 98104, USA., Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA., Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Neuroscience, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Shreveport, LA 71130, USA., Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center, Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA 98108, USA., Department of Translational Sciences and Molecular Medicine, College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University, Grand Rapids, MI 49503, USA., Department of Pathology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 98195, USA., Department of Neurology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 98195, USA., Division of Medical Genetics, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98104, USA., Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center, Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA 98108, USA. .

Abstract:  Brain lesions composed of pathological tau help to drive neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related tauopathies. Here, we identified the mammalian suppressor of tauopathy 2 (MSUT2) gene as a modifier of susceptibility to tau toxicity in two mouse models of tauopathy. Transgenic PS19 mice overexpressing tau, a model of AD, and lacking the Msut2 gene exhibited decreased learning and memory deficits, reduced neurodegeneration, and reduced accumulation of pathological tau compared to PS19 tau transgenic mice expressing Msut2 Conversely, Msut2 overexpression in 4RTauTg2652 tau transgenic mice increased pathological tau deposition and promoted the neuroinflammatory response to pathological tau. MSUT2 is a poly(A) RNA binding protein that antagonizes the canonical nuclear poly(A) binding protein PABPN1. In individuals with AD, MSUT2 abundance in postmortem brain tissue predicted an earlier age of disease onset. Postmortem AD brain tissue samples with normal amounts of MSUT2 showed elevated neuroinflammation associated with tau pathology. We observed co-depletion of MSUT2 and PABPN1 in postmortem brain samples from a subset of AD cases with higher tau burden and increased neuronal loss. This suggested that MSUT2 and PABPN1 may act together in a macromolecular complex bound to poly(A) RNA. Although MSUT2 and PABPN1 had opposing effects on both tau aggregation and poly(A) RNA tail length, we found that increased poly(A) tail length did not ameliorate tauopathy, implicating other functions of the MSUT2/PABPN1 complex in tau proteostasis. Our findings implicate poly(A) RNA binding proteins both as modulators of pathological tau toxicity in AD and as potential molecular targets for interventions to slow neurodegeneration in tauopathies. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 This Springer article contains several [**tortured phrases**] that make some passages hard to parse. These typically result from an attempt to avoid plagiarism detection using a paraphrasing software. So far, the following have been spotted: * **back proliferation** instead of the established _u2018back propagationu2019_ * **fluffy rationale** instead of the established _u2018fuzzy logicu2019_ * **genuine negative (TN)** instead of the established _u2018true negativeu2019_ * **genuine positive (TP)** instead of the established _u2018true positiveu2019_ * **likelihood thickness** instead of the established _u2018probability densityu2019_ * **shrouded layer** instead of the established _u2018hidden layeru2019_ * **fluffy AND fuzzy** instead of the established _u2018fuzzy (logics)u2019_ Can the authors explain why they departed from the established phrases? ![file] ![file] ![file] ![file] How come these incorrect wordings survived proofreading by the coauthors, editors, referees, copy editors, and typesetters? Found by the [_Problematic Paper Screener_] . ,