Current state of tau immunotherapy

Takami Tomiyama

Department of Neuroscience, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine

The success of Aβ immunotherapy in Alzheimer model mice has prompted many researchers to investigate tau immunotherapy. A recent hypothesis of the cell-to-cell propagation of tau pathology supports the notion that tau immunotherapy can prevent tauopathy phenotypes by sequestering extracellular tau aggregates. Many studies have indicated that active and passive immunization against pathological tau successfully attenuated tau pathology in tauopathy model mice. At the same time, some have cautioned that active tau immunization may cause neuroinflammation in the brain, suggesting that passive immunization is better for managing adverse effects. Our new monoclonal anti-pSer413 antibody, Ta1505, significantly improved memory and reduced the levels of tau hyperphosphorylation, tau oligomer accumulation, synapse loss, tangle formation, and neuronal loss in our aged tauopathy mice. Our results indicate that pSer413 is a promising target in the treatment of tauopathy.

Address correspondence to Dr. Takami Tomiyama, Department of Neuroscience, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine(1-4-3 Asahimachi, Abeno-ku, Asahimachi, Osaka 545-8585, Japan)