Stabilizing tauopathies

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found that low doses of the microtubule stabilizer epothilone D, a failed cancer compound from the Kosan Biosciences unit of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., could have utility in neurodegenerative tauopathies like Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementias.¹

Neurodegenerative tauopathies are characterized by the presence of neurofibrillary tangles in neurons, which are formed by the pathological aggregation of t proteins. These proteins normally bind to and stabilize microtubules; the loss of this function increases microtubule destabilization, which could impair axonal transport and neuronal function.² Thus, researchers have postulated that restoring microtubule stability could have a therapeutic benefit against tauopathies.³...