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Evidence of distinct α-synuclein strains underlying disease heterogeneity

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Abstract

Synucleinopathies are a group of neurodegenerative disorders caused by the misfolding and self-templating of the protein α-synuclein, or the formation of α-synuclein prions. Each disorder differs by age of onset, presenting clinical symptoms, α-synuclein inclusion morphology, and neuropathological distribution. Explaining this disease-specific variability, the strain hypothesis postulates that each prion disease is encoded by a distinct conformation of the misfolded protein, and therefore, each synucleinopathy is caused by a unique α-synuclein structure. This review discusses the current data supporting the role of α-synuclein strains in disease heterogeneity. Several in vitro and in vivo models exist for evaluating strain behavior, however, as the focus of this article is to compare strains across synucleinopathy patients, our discussion predominantly focuses on the two models most commonly used for this purpose: the α-syn140*A53T–YFP cell line and the TgM83+/− mouse model. Here we define each strain based on biochemical stability, ability to propagate in α-syn140–YFP cell lines, and incubation period, inclusion morphology and distribution, and neurological signs in TgM83+/− mice.

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a, c–e) Data modified from [106]

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Acknowledgements

We thank Steven H. Olson for his assistance with modeling the E46K mutation and Sarah Pyle for her graphic design work. This work was supported by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

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  1. Department of Biology, Institute for Applied Life Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA

    Sara A. M. Holec & Amanda L. Woerman

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Holec, S.A.M., Woerman, A.L. Evidence of distinct α-synuclein strains underlying disease heterogeneity. Acta Neuropathol 142, 73–86 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00401-020-02163-5

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