Expression of Alzheimer-Like Pathological Human Tau Induces a Behavioral Motor and Olfactory Learning Deficit in Drosophila melanogaster

A key characteristic of Alzheimer's disease and other tauopathies is the progressive accumulation of neurofibrillary tangles mainly composed of hyperphosphorylated tau protein. In the present study, we use transgenic Drosophila melanogaster as a model to analyze in vivo the effect of expressing pseudophosphorylated tau (S199E/T212E/T231E/S262E tau) on pathological human tau (PH-tau) and on the FTDP-17 mutant R406W (PH-tauR406W). We used two different inducers that produced different levels of tau expression. The expression of these forms of tau did not significantly affect the lifespan of the flies. Flies expressing PH-tau displayed a clear locomotor dysfunction compared to those expressing normal tau regardless of the level of expression. At lower level of expression, this pathological phenotype was found to be age-dependent. At 35 days old, PH-tau flies showed the strongest locomotor impairment compare to flies expressing human tau or control flies (46%, 18% and 18% of flies remained on the bottom of the vials, respectively). At higher levels of expression, PH-tau flies showed these defects at seven days of age and the dysfunction also became significant for flies expressing tauR406W and PH-tauR406W. Whole brain immunochemistry analysis revealed that PH-tau as well as PH-tauR406W appeared to have abnormal mushroom body structures, critical structures involved in olfactory learning and memory in Drosophila. Severe olfactory learning deficits were induced by the expression of PH-tau. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that PH-tau induced a toxic effect in Drosophila, as flies develop both an abnormal motor deficit, associated with disruption of the mushroom body neurons, and impaired olfactory learning.