Differential cross-seeding properties of tau and α-synuclein in mouse models of tauopathy and synucleinopathy

Co-occurrence of tau and α-synuclein pathologies in a subset of Alzheimer’s disease patients has led to the idea that mixed pathologies may play a unique characteristic role in the Alzheimer’s disease neurodegenerative cascade. To understand the aetiology of such mixed pathologies, we investigated cross-seeding by human recombinant tau and human recombinant α-synuclein fibrillar species in a mouse model of tauopathy (Line PS19) or synucleinopathy (Line M20). Unilateral hippocampal injection of tau fibrils or α-synuclein fibrils, and to a lesser extent tau + α-synuclein copolymer fibrils prepared from co-incubating individual recombinant monomers, induced robust phosphorylated tau pathology in PS19 mice relative to control mice. Though the tau + α-synuclein copolymer fibrils did not modulate induction of pathologies at the site of injection, examination of the whole brain showed that these copolymers exacerbated neuroanatomic transmission of seeded tau pathology compared to tau fibril-injected mice. Only α-synuclein fibrils, but not tau alone or tau + α-synuclein copolymers, triggered modest levels of endogenous phosphorylated α-synuclein pathology. Overall, data from the PS19 mice suggest that human α-synuclein fibrils can efficiently cross-seed human tau and have a modest priming effect on mouse α-synuclein, and the presence of tau fibrils does not exacerbate the priming process. In M20 mice, unilateral hippocampal injection of α-synuclein fibrils or tau fibrils induced robust bilateral phosphorylated α-synuclein pathology, while tau + α-synuclein copolymer injection resulted in restricted phosphorylated α-synuclein pathology predominantly in the ipsilateral cortex. This suggests that human tau fibrils can also induce human α-synuclein pathogenesis, and the presence of combinatorial seeds is not synergistic. None of these aggregates induced phosphorylated tau pathology in M20 mice, showing that mouse tau cannot be primed efficiently by human tau fibrils or human α-synuclein fibrils. Neuropathological analysis of the whole brain of M20 mice showed that tau + α-synuclein copolymer-injected mice had lower abundance of bilaterally transmitted α-synuclein pathologies relative to α-synuclein fibril-injected mice. Thus, the tau + α-synuclein copolymer fibrils show robust transmission properties preferentially in rodent model of tauopathies but not in synucleinopathy, probably signifying an enhanced cooperative relationship between tau and α-synuclein in the tau seeding process. Together, our data highlight the unique cross-seeding properties of tau and αSyn in neurodegenerative proteinopathies.