MAPT and cancer: In addition, neurons of tau transgenic Drosophila undergo an abortive cell cycle activation via a neurodegenerative process that shares many features of metastatic cancer cells and less differentiated cell types, including over-stabilization of filamentous actin,11,51 nuclear pleomorphism,52,53 loss of heterochromatin-mediated transcriptional silencing,54,55 and activation of transposable elements.56