α-Synuclein: Multiple System Atrophy Prions

Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. 2018 Jul 2;8(7):a024588. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a024588.

Abstract

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disease arising from the misfolding and accumulation of the protein α-synuclein in oligodendrocytes, where it forms glial cytoplasmic inclusions (GCIs). Several years of studying synthetic α-synuclein fibrils has provided critical insight into the ability of α-synuclein to template endogenous protein misfolding, giving rise to fibrillar structures capable of propagating from cell to cell. However, more recent studies with MSA-derived α-synuclein aggregates have shown that they have a similar ability to undergo template-directed propagation, like PrP prions. Almost 20 years after α-synuclein was discovered as the primary component of GCIs, α-synuclein aggregates isolated from MSA patient samples were shown to infect cultured mammalian cells and also to transmit neurological disease to transgenic mice. These findings argue that α-synuclein becomes a prion in MSA patients. In this review, we discuss the in vitro and in vivo data supporting the recent classification of MSA as a prion disease.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Humans
  • Mice
  • Mice, Transgenic
  • Multiple System Atrophy / etiology*
  • Prion Diseases / complications*
  • Prion Diseases / transmission
  • Prions / chemistry
  • Prions / physiology*
  • alpha-Synuclein / physiology*

Substances

  • Prions
  • alpha-Synuclein