Fibril treatment changes protein interactions of tau and α-synuclein in human neurons.

In several neurodegenerative disorders, the neuronal proteins tau and α-synuclein adopt aggregation-prone conformations capable of replicating within and between cells. To better understand how these conformational changes drive neuropathology, we compared the interactomes of tau and α-synuclein in the presence or absence of recombinant fibril seeds. Human embryonic stem cells with an inducible neurogenin-2 transgene were differentiated into glutamatergic neurons expressing 1) wild-type 0N4R tau, 2) mutant (P301L) 0N4R tau, 3) wild-type α-synuclein, or 4) mutant (A53T) α-synuclein, each genetically fused to a promiscuous biotin ligase (BioID2). Neurons expressing unfused BioID2 served as controls. After treatment with fibrils or PBS, interacting proteins were labelled with biotin in situ and quantified using mass spectrometry via tandem mass tag labelling. By comparing interactions in mutant versus wild-type neurons and in fibril- versus PBS-treated neurons, we observed changes in protein interactions that are likely relevant to disease progression. We identified forty-five shared interactors, suggesting that tau and α-synuclein function within some of the same pathways. Potential loci of shared interactions include microtubules, Wnt signaling complexes, and RNA granules. Following fibril treatment, physiological interactions decreased while other interactions, including those between tau and 14-3-3 η, increased. We confirmed that 14-3-3 proteins, which are known to colocalize with protein aggregates during neurodegeneration, can promote or inhibit tau aggregation in vitro depending on the specific combination of 14-3-3 isoform and tau sequence.