Koh YH, Tan LY and Ng S-Y (2018) Patient-Derived Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells and Organoids for Modeling Alpha Synuclein Propagation in Parkinson’s Disease. Front. Cell. Neurosci. 12:413. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2018.00413
Abstract:
Parkinson's disease (PD) is an age-associated, progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor impairment and in some cases cognitive decline. Central to the disease pathogenesis of PD is a small, presynaptic neuronal protein known as alpha synuclein (a-syn), which tends to accumulate and aggregate in PD brains as Lewy bodies or Lewy neurites. Numerous in vitro and in vivo studies confirm that a-syn aggregates can be propagated from diseased to healthy cells, and it has been suggested that preventing the spread of pathogenic a-syn species can slow PD progression. In this review, we summarize the works of recent literature elucidating mechanisms of a-syn propagation, and discussed the advantages in using patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and/or induced neurons to study a-syn transmission.
License type:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Funding Info:
We thank Winanto for assistance with graphics. YHK is a recipient of the NUS Research Scholarship (YLL School of Medicine/Physiology). This work is funded by the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (Biomedical Science Institutes) and the National Medical Research Council (Grant ID: NMRC/OFYIRG/0011/2016).