The nitration of τ protein in neurone-like PC12 cells

AbstractTyrosine nitration of proteins is emerging as a post-translational modification playing a role in physiological conditions. Looking for the molecular events triggered by nitric oxide in nerve growth factor-induced neuronal differentiation, we now find that nitration occurs on the microtubule-associated protein τ. In differentiated PC12 cells, we have identified as τ a nitrated protein that co-immunoprecipitates with α-tubulin and indicated that the modified protein is associated with the cytoskeleton but it is confined to a restricted cell region. This paper supplies the first evidence that nitration of τ occurs in a physiological process and suggests that it could play a role in neuronal differentiation