Lester I. Binder, PhD Professor Cell and Molecular Biology The role of the cytoskeleton in neurodegeneration Curricula: Cell Biology Neurobiology E-mail:   l-binder@northwestern.edu

We study the role of microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs) in the normal and diseased nervous system. Most of our work has focused on tau, a protein thought to stabilize axonal microtubules, but that is also present in other cellular and subcellular compartments in the central nervous system. The functions of this extra-microtubule tau is not known although its association with ribosomes in neurons and astrocytes and with the rRNA gene clusters in nuclei and on chromosomes of dividing cells suggests some role in protein synthesis. We have also documented tau's presence in oligodendrocytes, perhaps associated with membrane vesicles, suggesting yet another function for this fascinating molecule.
Interest in tau is great in the medical community because we and others have shown that it is the major protein species in the paired helical filaments (PHFs). These filaments comprise the fibrillar pathologies found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's Disease. Furthermore, many forms of human Frontal Lobe Dementias, that are characterized by tau filamentous inclusions, are caused by autosomal dominant mutations in tau. Using cellular, molecular and immunological techniques, my lab studies the mechanism of tau filament formation in vitro and in vivo and seeks to determine the functional consequences of tau polymerization to the neurodegenerative cascade.

Publications:

King, M.E., Gamblin, T.C., Kuret, J., and Binder, L.I. 2000. Differential assembly of human tau isoforms into straight and paired-helical filaments, in vitro. J. Neurochem., 74: 1749-1757.

Gamblin, T.C., King, M.E., Dawson, H., Vitek, M., Kuret, J., Berry, R.W., and L.I. Binder (2000) In vitro polymerization of tau protein measured by laser light scattering: Method and application to the study of FTDP-17 mutants. Biochemistry 39:6136-6144.

King, M. E., Ahuja, V., Wilson, D., Binder, L.I., and Kuret, J. 1999. Tau filament formation via pathological chaperones: Implications for Alzheimer’s disease progression. Biochemistry, 38: 14851-14859.

View Publications by Lester Binder listed in the National Library of Medicine (PubMed).

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