High-content siRNA screening of the kinome identifies kinases involved in Alzheimer's disease-related tau hyperphosphorylation.

Background: Neurofibrillary tangles (NFT), a cardinal neuropathological feature of Alzheimer's disease (AD) that is highly correlated with synaptic loss and dementia severity, appear to be partly attributable to increased phosphorylation of the microtubule stabilizing protein tau at certain AD-related residues. Identifying the kinases involved in the pathologic phosphorylation of tau may provide targets at which to aim new AD-modifying treatments.

Results: We report results from a screen of 572 kinases in the human genome for effects on tau hyperphosphorylation using a loss of function, high-throughput RNAi approach.