Gene knockout of tau expression does not contribute to the pathogenesis of prion disease

Abstract

Prion diseases or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies are agroup of fatal and transmissible disorders affecting the central nervous system of humans and animals. The principal agent of prion disease transmission and pathogenesis is proposed to be an abnormalprotease-resistant isoform of the normal cellular prion protein. The microtubule-associated protein tau is elevated in patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. To determine whether tau expression contributesto prion disease pathogenesis, tau knockout and control wild-type mice were infected with the M1000 strain of mouse-adapted human prions. Immunohistochemical analysis for total tau expressionin prion-infected wild-type mice indic..