{"id":229321,"date":"2026-01-19T09:16:53","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T15:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/unm-researchers-discover-new-master-regulator-of-tau-a-protein-implicated-in-many-neurodegenerative-diseases"},"modified":"2026-01-19T09:16:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T15:16:53","slug":"unm-researchers-discover-new-master-regulator-of-tau-a-protein-implicated-in-many-neurodegenerative-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/unm-researchers-discover-new-master-regulator-of-tau-a-protein-implicated-in-many-neurodegenerative-diseases","title":{"rendered":"UNM Researchers Discover New Master Regulator of Tau, a Protein Implicated in Many Neurodegenerative Diseases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/unm-researchers-discover-new-master-regulator-of-tau-a-protein-implicated-in-many-neurodegenerative-diseases.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a surprising discovery, University of New Mexico researchers have found that OTULIN \u2013 an enzyme that helps regulate the immune system \u2013 also drives the formation of tau, a protein implicated in many neurodegenerative diseases, as well as brain inflammation and aging.<\/p>\n<p>In a study published in the journal Genomic Psychiatry, the researchers reported that when they deactivated OTULIN, either by administering a custom-designed small molecule or knocking out the gene that codes for it, it halted the production of tau and removed it from neurons. The study was conducted on two different types of cells, some derived from a patient who had died from late-onset sporadic Alzheimer\u2019s disease, and the rest from a line of human neuroblastoma cells that are frequently used in neuroscience research.<\/p>\n<p>The discovery opens the door to potential treatments for Alzheimer\u2019s and other neurodegenerative diseases, said Karthikeyan Tangavelou, PhD, a senior scientist in the lab of Kiran Bhaskar, PhD, professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics &amp; Microbiology in the UNM School of Medicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a surprising discovery, University of New Mexico researchers have found that OTULIN \u2013 an enzyme that helps regulate the immune system \u2013 also drives the formation of tau, a protein implicated in many neurodegenerative diseases, as well as brain inflammation and aging. In a study published in the journal Genomic Psychiatry, the researchers reported [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":701,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,269,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-life-extension","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/701"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}