Patient-Derived Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells and Organoids for Modeling Alpha Synuclein Propagation in Parkinson's Disease

• Main Authors: Yong Hui Koh, Li Yi Tan, Shi-Yan Ng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-11-01
• Series: Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience
• Subjects: iPSCs; alpha synuclein (α-synuclein); lewy body disease; organoids; disease modeling
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fncel.2018.00413/full

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.