Tauopathies are neurodegenerative brain diseases that are characterized by the formation of intraneuronal inclusions containing the microtubule-associated protein tau.
Given the prevalence of tau protein deposition among neurodegenerative diseases, these findings have broad implications for understanding, and potentially treating, dozens of brain diseases.
Abnormally phosphorylated tau protein is the key common marker in several brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson`s disease, Pick Disease, Down syndrome and frontotemporal dementia and is capable of affecting synaptic events that are critical for memory formation.
Overall, a better knowledge of the etiological factors responsible for the aggregation of tau proteins in brain diseases is essential for development of future differential diagnosis and therapeutic strategies.