Neurofibrillary tangles are bundles of tau proteins, which mark the tau gene (MAPT) as a strong candidate for Alzheimer’s disease.

Senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles are the primary indicators of Alzheimer's disease in the brain. Plaques are formed from deposits of amyloid-beta peptide. Neurofibrillary tangles are bundles of tau proteins, which mark the tau gene (microtubule-associated protein tau, MAPT) as a strong candidate for Alzheimer’s disease. Tau proteins are widely expressed in neurons and interact with tubulin to help assemble microtubules, scaffold-like structures that maintain a cell’s shape. Microtubules are one of the components of the cytoskeleton. Mutations of the tau gene are known to cause frontal temporal dementia, which is similar to Alzheimer’s disease (although the pathology is different). More convincingly, Conrad and colleagues (2002) identified a single nucleotide polymorphism in the tau gene (MAPT) that was more common in individuals with late onset Alzheimer’s disease.

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