https://phys.org/news/2018-07-secret-sulfate-code-bad-tau.html

"The question was, how specific is this (process)? Or is it not specific at all?" asked Barbara Stopschinski, the physician and researcher in Diamond's lab who oversaw the new work. What were the details of the chemical communication between HSPG and tau that triggered tau's entry into the cells? And was this process different for alpha-synuclein (associated with Parkinson's disease), amyloid-beta and tau (both associated with Alzheimer's disease)?

HSPGs can be of different sizes and structures; they can be decorated with different patterns of sugars, and the sugars can themselves contain different patterns of sulfur-containing groups (sulfate moieties). Stopschinski systematically tested how different patterns of sulfate moieties affected the binding and uptake into cells of alpha-synuclein, amyloid-beta and tau.