Nature Medicine | Spoonful of Medicine
Pumping iron: Tau’s role in neuron death revealed
The protein tau has long been at the center of a debate about the causes of Alzheimer’s disease, but how the protein works is still mostly a mystery. A paper published online yesterday in Nature Medicine examines tau’s less-controversial role in Parkinson’s disease and demonstrates that the protein’s function in the brain is intimately related to the transport of iron, a big step toward understanding the molecular underpinnings of both neurodegenerative diseases.
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