Pharmacological Targeting of Tau Aggregates for Autophagic Removal in Alzheimer's Disease

National Institute On Aging

Investigators

Abstract

We completed a chemical library screen to structurally characterize the domain of our protein of interest to identify binding sites for small molecule ligands of the protein. From this screen, we have identified a series of chemical structures that bind the target protein. We have confirmed binding of a subset of those ligands to the protein in vitro. In the next period, we will initiate work to chemically synthesize those ligands that are not commercially available, and determine their structure activity relation in order to optimize binding efficacy of the tool compounds. We have also created cell line models containing the target protein tagged and mitochondria labeled to allow validation tests of the tool compounds.