Proanthocyanidins prevent tau protein aggregation and disintegrate tau filaments

Occurrence of neurofibrillary tangles of the tau protein is a hallmark of tau-related neurodegenerative diseases, i.e. Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia. The pathological mechanism under-lying AD remains poorly understood, and effective treatments are still unavailable to mitigate the disease. Inhibiting of tau aggregation and disrupting the existing fibrils are key targets in drug discovery towards preventing or curing AD. In this study, grape seed proanthocyanidins (GSPs) was found to effectively inhi-bit the repeat domain of tau (tau-RD) aggregation and disaggregate tau-RD fibrils in a concentration -dependent manner by inhibiting b-sheet formation of tau-RD. In cells, GSPs relieved cytotoxicity induced by tau-RD aggregates. Molecular dynamics simulations indicated that strong hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic interaction and 7C -7C stacking between GSPs and tau-RD protein were major reasons why GSPs had high inhibitory activity on tau-RD fibrillogenesis. These results provide preliminary data to develop GSPs into medicines, foodstuffs or nutritional supplements for AD patients, suggesting that GSPs could be a candidate molecule in the drug design for AD therapeutics.(c) 2022 Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China (CIESC) and Chemical Industry Press (CIP) Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.