Additional file 11: of Tau mutant A152T, a risk factor for FTD/PSP, induces neuronal dysfunction and reduced lifespan independently of aggregation in a C. elegans Tauopathy model

Expression of mutant TauAT produces a substantial damage in GABAergic motor neurons. Representative whole worm maximum intensity projections (MIP) of the enlarged insets presented in main Fig. 2. Punc-25::gfp reporter that labels GABAergic inhibitory neurons with GFP, was crossed with respective tau-transgenic worms to visualize these neurons. GABAergic neurons show normal connectivity in non-tg worms, both dorsal and ventral nerve cords are intact (A). Expression of Tauwt produced dose dependent abnormalities in GABAergic neurons, with Tauwt -hi neurons (C) accumulating more damage than Tauwt -lo (B). However, mutant TauAT expression led to severe abnormalities in the form of gaps (arrowheads) in the dorsal and ventral nerve cords, in both TauAT-lo (D) and TauAT-hi (E). Also see Table 1 for detailed quantitative analysis. (PDF 276 kb)