Binding and neurotoxicity mitigation of toxic tau oligomers by synthetic heparin like oligosaccharides.

Well-defined heparin like oligosaccharides up to decasaccharides were synthesized. It was discovered for the first time that heparin oligosaccharides, as short as tetrasaccharides, can bind with the most toxic tau species, i.e., tau oligomers with nM KD. The binding significantly reduced the cellular uptake of toxic tau oligomers and protected the cells from tau oligomer induced cytotoxicity.