Fig. 1: Tau undergoes phase separation and associates with 12mer arrays.

a Confocal microscopy images of droplets of 50 μM tau with 80 nM 12mer arrays (1 μM equivalent of mononucleosomes), 1 μM mononucleosomes, or 80 nM 2.1 kbp DNA (1 μM equivalent of ‘601’ DNA sites), visualized with 5% Cy5-tau (scale bar = 50 μm). Studies were conducted in 20 mM HEPES buffer, 25 mM NaCl, 0.5 mM TCEP, pH 7.2. b FRAP analysis of 50 μM tau droplets with different LLPS inducers in the same low salt buffer. The standard deviation and the best monoexponential fit curve are plotted for each data set. Quantification of maximum recovery (%) and half-life (s) are tabulated in Table S1. c Turbidity at A₆₀₀ of tau solutions with different LLPS inducers in the same low salt buffer. Individual replicates are shown, and the line indicates the mean. d Schematic of the compaction behavior of 12mer arrays in the presence of cations, including physiological salt. e Confocal microscopy images of 50 μM tau (with 5% Cy5-labelled tau) with 80 nM 12mer arrays at 150 mM NaCl (scale bar = 50 μm) in the same buffer. YOYO-1 was added to visualize the arrays. f EMSA of 4 nM 12mer arrays with and without tau, in 20 mM HEPES buffer, 150 mM NaCl, 0.5 mM TCEP, 0.1% Tween, pH 7.2. MN – mononucleosomes.