S-078
Pathological Tau fibrils induce changes in endogenous TDP-43 protein levels and subcellular distribution in cultured SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells.
Lourdes Guitart Molina1,2, Florencia López Ambrosioni1,2, Florencia Vassallu1,2, Sabrina Sequeira3, Rodrigo Tomás Grau3, Rosana Chehin3, Diego Ploper3, Lionel Muller Igaz1,2
  1. Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Médicas, Departamento de Ciencias Fisiológicas. Grupo de Neurociencia de Sistemas. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
  2. CONICET - Universidad de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Fisiología y Biofísica Bernardo Houssay (IFIBIO Houssay). Buenos Aires, Argentina.
  3. Instituto de Investigación en Medicina Molecular y Celular Aplicada (IMMCA) (CONICET- UNT-Ministerio de Salud Pública de Tucumán), Pasaje Dorrego 1080, 4000, San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina
Presenting Author:
Lourdes Guitart Molina
lourdesguitartmolina@gmail.com
TDP-43 proteinopathy, originally discovered in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), coexists with tauopathy in a variety of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer´s disease. However, the role of this co-occurrence in pathological processes is still unclear. In this study, we used transgenic SH-SY5Y-Tau-GFP cells, incubated with pre-formed Tau fibrils (Tau-PFF), to model and investigate the interaction between pathological Tau and endogenous TDP-43. We quantified TDP-43 intensity at cellular, nuclear and cytoplasmic levels using high-content single cell analysis. Tau-PFF treatment resulted in increased cellular, nuclear and cytoplasmic TDP-43 intensity. Interestingly, the nuclear/cytoplasmic (N/C) ratio decreased due to a larger increase in the cytoplasmic compartment, indicating abnormal subcellular redistribution as observed in TDP-43 proteinopathies. We also analyzed the effect of Tau-PFF incubation in cell populations with (+) or without (-) stable Tau-GFP expression. Nuclear TDP-43 intensity increased upon Tau-PFF treatment regardless of Tau-GFP expression. Moreover, we detected an increase in nuclear TDP-43 intensity when comparing Tau-GFP (+) versus (–) cells within both control and Tau-PFF treated groups, with the largest fold-change showed by the control Tau-GFP (-) vs. Tau-PFF Tau (+) comparison. In summary, this data demonstrate a causal role for pathological, fibrillar Tau in regulating TDP-43 levels and distribution.