ABSTRACT:The intrinsically disordered protein tau becomes excessively phosphorylated and aggregates into neurofibrillary tangles in Alzheimer's disease. To obtain insight into the structural consequences of phosphorylation, we characterized a mutant protein of tau in which epitopes recognized by Alzheimer diagnostic antibodies were mimicked by mutation to glutamic acid [AT8 (S199E, S202E, T205E), AT100 (T212E and S214E), and PHF1 (S396E and S404E)]. A large number of distance restraints obtained from NMR paramagnetic relaxation enhancement in combination with ensemble conformer calculations demonstrate that pseudophosphorylation causes an opening of the transient folding of tau. Together with previous studies on the Parkinson-related protein α-synuclein, our data indicate that networks of transient long-range interactions are common properties of intrinsically disordered proteins and that their modulation is important for aggregation.A ggregation of the microtubule-associated protein tau into neurofibrillary tangles is the pathological hallmark of a variety of dementias. 1,2 For reasons not yet known, tau becomes excessively phosphorylated in Alzheimer's brains and as a result no longer binds properly to microtubules. The unbound tau is free to undergo abnormal aggregation. In vivo, hyperphosphorylation of tau precedes tangle formation. 3 At least 30 phosphorylation sites in tau filaments have been identified. 4 Phosphorylation at serine/proline and threonine/proline motifs in the flanking regions of the repeat domain of tau has only a moderate influence on tauÀmicrotubule interactions but is upregulated in Alzheimer's disease. 5 Tau is a prototypical intrinsically disordered protein that does not assume a rigid tertiary or secondary structure but populates an ensemble of interconverting structures in solution. 6,7 Because of the inherent flexibility of tau, NMR spectroscopy is the only method that allows a description of its conformations and dynamics with high resolution. 8 We have recently shown that it is possible to obtain the complete backbone resonance assignment of the longest isoform of human tau and demonstrated that 441-residue tau has a distinct domain character with an intricate network of long-range interactions. 7 Here we investigate changes in the local and global structure of 441-residue tau related to phosphorylation in the epitopes recognized by the Alzheimer diagnostic antibodies AT8 (S199E, S202E, T205E), AT100 (T212E and S214E), and PHF1 (S396E and S404E). To avoid the ambiguities of heterogeneous phosphorylation, we cloned "pseudophosphorylation" mutants of tau in which serine and threonine residues were converted into glutamic acid. The same mutant protein was previously shown to aggregate slightly faster in comparison with wild-type (wt) tau. 9 In addition, a different six-site pseudophosphorylation mutant (S199E, S202E, T205E, T231E, S396E, and S404E) had a decreased rate of elongation and a pronounced lag time of aggregation. 10 We determined cross-validated ensembles of wild-type (wt)...