Reduction of Phosphorylated Tau in Alzheimer’s Disease Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Neuro-Spheroids by Rho-Associated Coiled-Coil Kinase Inhibitor Fasudil

Abstract

Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most predominant form of dementia. Rho-associated coiled coil kinase (ROCK) inhibitor, fasudil, is one of the candidate drugs against the AD progression. Objective: We aimed to investigate possible changes of AD associated markers in three-dimensional neuro-spheroids (3D neuro-spheroids) generated from induced pluripotent stem cells derived from AD patients or healthy control subjects (HC) and to determine the impact of pharmacological intervention with the ROCK inhibitor fasudil. Methods: We treated 3D neuro-spheroids with fasudil and tested the possible effect on AD markers by ELISA, transcriptomic and proteomic analyses. Results: Transcriptomic analysis revealed a reduction in the expression of AKT serine/threonine-protein kinase 1 (AKT1) in AD neuro-spheroids, compared to HC. This decrease was reverted in the presence of fasudil. Proteomic analysis showed up- and down-regulation of proteins related to AKT pathway in fasudil-treated neuro-spheroids. We found an evident increase of phosphorylated tau at four different residues (pTau181, 202, 231, and 396) in AD compared to HC-derived neuro-spheroids. This was accompanied by a decrease of secreted clusterin (clu) and an increase of intracellular clu levels in AD patient-derived neuro-spheroids. Increases of phosphorylated tau in AD patient-derived neuro-spheroids were suppressed in the presence of fasudil. Conclusions: Fasudil modulates clu protein levels and enhances AKT1 that results in the suppression of AD associated tau phosphorylation.

Effect of the ROCK inhibitor fasudil on the brain proteomic profile in the tau transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease

“…We recently found that fasudil was able to reduce the increase of pTau at different residues (i.e., pTau-202, −231, and −396) in Alzheimer's induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurospheroids via clusterin (clu) and the AKT serine/threonine-protein kinase 1 (AKT1) (Giunti et al, 2023 ). In our PS19 mice, treatment with fasudil significantly affected tau phosphorylation in the brain in a dose dependent manner.…”