The aggregation of α-synuclein plays a major role in Parkinson disease (PD) pathogenesis. Recent evidence suggests that defects in the autophagy-mediated clearance of α-synuclein contribute to the progressive loss of nigral dopamine neurons. Using an in vivo model of α-synuclein toxicity, we show that the PD-like neurodegenerative changes induced by excess cellular levels of α-synuclein in nigral dopamine neurons are closely linked to a progressive decline in markers of lysosome function, accompanied by cytoplasmic retention of transcription factor EB (TFEB), a major transcriptional regulator of the autophagy-lysosome pathway. The changes in lysosomal function, observed in the rat model as well as in human PD midbrain, were reversed by overexpression of TFEB, which afforded robust neuroprotection via the clearance of α-synuclein oligomers, and were aggravated by microRNA-128-mediated repression of TFEB in both A9 and A10 dopamine neurons. Delayed activation of TFEB function through inhibition of mammalian target of rapamycin blocked α-synuclein induced neurodegeneration and further disease progression. The results provide a mechanistic link between α-synuclein toxicity and impaired TFEB function, and highlight TFEB as a key player in the induction of α-synucleininduced toxicity and PD pathogenesis, thus identifying TFEB as a promising target for therapies aimed at neuroprotection and disease modification in PD.adeno-associated virus | Beclin | aggregates | synucleinopathy A major hallmark of Parkinson disease (PD) that contributes to the progressive loss of nigral dopamine (DA) neurons is α-synucleinopathy. Defects in clearance of oligomeric or misfolded proteins have been associated with aging and several neurodegenerative disorders (1-4). In human PD and related Lewy Body diseases, the presence of α-synuclein-positive (α-syn + ) aggregates is associated with accumulation of autophagosomes and reduction of lysosomal markers in affected nigral DA neurons, suggesting a defect in lysosome-mediated clearance of α-syn aggregates (5-7).How dysfunction of the autophagy-lysosome pathway (ALP) contributes to the pathogenesis of PD remains unclear. Under physiological conditions, α-syn is degraded by the ubiquitinproteasome system and the ALP, including macroautophagy and chaperone-mediated autophagy (6,(8)(9)(10)(11)(12). In cases of α-syn overload, however, misfolded or mutated α-syn fails to be processed and α-syn clearance by chaperone-mediated autophagy is blocked (12)(13)(14)(15). In this situation, processing of excess α-syn, or toxic α-syn species, will depend on the functional integrity of the macroautophagy pathway (14). In support, it has been shown that mice deficient in one of the autophagy-related (atg) proteins develop neurodegeneration, and that deficiency in atg7 or the PD-associated protein PARK9 (ATP13A2, a lysosomal ATPase) causes PD-like neurodegeneration, both in vitro and in vivo (7,(16)(17)(18)(19). In humans, PD has been genetically linked to the rare lysosomal storage diseases, Gaucher disease a...

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We used in vivo amperometry to monitor changes in synaptic dopamine (DA) release in the striatum induced by overexpression of human wild-type α-synuclein in nigral DA neurons, induced by injection of an adeno-associated virus type 6 (AAV6)-α-synuclein vector unilaterally into the substantia nigra in adult rats. Impairments in DA release evolved in parallel with the development of degenerative changes in the nigrostriatal axons and terminals. The earliest change, seen 10 d after vector injection, was a marked, ≈50%, reduction in DA reuptake, consistent with an early dysfunction of the DA transporter that developed before any overt signs of axonal damage. At 3 wk, when the first signs of axonal damage were observed, the amount of DA released after a KCl pulse was reduced by 70-80%, and peak DA concentration was delayed, indicating an impaired release mechanism. At later time points, 8-16 wk, overall striatal innervation density was reduced by 60-80% and accompanied by abundant signs of axonal damage in the form of α-synuclein aggregates, axonal swellings, and dystrophic axonal profiles. At this stage DA release and reuptake were profoundly reduced, by 80-90%. The early changes in synaptic DA release induced by overexpression of human α-synuclein support the idea that early predegenerative changes in the handling of DA may initiate, and drive, a progressive degenerative process that hits the axons and terminals first. Synaptic dysfunction and axonopathy would thus be the hallmark of presymptomatic and earlystage Parkinson disease, followed by neuronal degeneration and cell loss, characteristic of more advanced stages of the disease.neurodegeneration | synaptic transmission I n Parkinson disease (PD) damage to axons and axonal terminals is likely to precede any overt dopamine (DA) neuron cell death, suggesting that the disease process may start at the axon terminal level and progress retrogradely to affect the cell bodies. Support of this idea comes from autopsy studies of brains from PD patients, which suggest that the extent of damage to the DA terminals in caudate nucleus and putamen at the time of disease onset is more extensive than the loss of DA neurons in the substantia nigra (see ref. 1 for a recent review). Although genuine longitudinal data are difficult to obtain in human material, available postmortem data indicate that the loss of DA in the caudate nucleus at the time of onset of symptoms is on the order of 70-80%, whereas as much as 70% of the nigral DA cell bodies may still be alive (1-5). Measurement of binding to the vesicular monoamine transporter (VMAT), which is likely to be a good measure of the functional integrity of the DA terminals, has shown severe loss of VMAT in the caudate nucleus early in the disease in some patients (6).Together, these data suggest that impairments at the terminal/ synaptic level may be a prominent feature of presymptomatic and early-stage PD and that impaired DA neurotransmission may contribute to the functional deficits seen also at more advanced stages of the disea...

The trophic response of dopamine neurons to GDNF, mediated by the transcription factor Nurr1, protects them from α-synuclein–mediated toxicity.

In Parkinson disease (PD), affected midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons lose specific dopaminergic properties before the neurons die. How the phenotype of DA neurons is normally established and the ways in which pathology affects the maintenance of cell identity are, therefore, important considerations. Orphan nuclear receptor NURR1 (NURR1, also known as NR4A2) is involved in the differentiation of midbrain DA neurons, but also has an important role in the adult brain. Emerging evidence indicates that impaired NURR1 function might contribute to the pathogenesis of PD: NURR1 and its transcriptional targets are downregulated in midbrain DA neurons that express high levels of the disease-causing protein α-synuclein. Clinical and experimental data indicate that disrupted NURR1 function contributes to induction of DA neuron dysfunction, which is seen in early stages of PD. The likely involvement of NURR1 in the development and progression of PD makes this protein a potentially interesting target for therapeutic intervention.

Developmental transcription factors important in early neuron specification and differentiation often remain expressed in the adult brain. However, how these transcription factors function to mantain appropriate neuronal identities in adult neurons and how transcription factor dysregulation may contribute to disease remain largely unknown. The transcription factor Nurr1 has been associated with Parkinson's disease and is essential for the development of ventral midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons. We used conditional Nurr1 genetargeted mice in which Nurr1 is ablated selectively in mature DA neurons by treatment with tamoxifen. We show that Nurr1 ablation results in a progressive pathology associated with reduced striatal DA, impaired motor behaviors, and dystrophic axons and dendrites. We used laser-microdissected DA neurons for RNA extraction and next-generation mRNA sequencing to identify Nurr1-regulated genes. This analysis revealed that Nurr1 functions mainly in transcriptional activation to regulate a battery of genes expressed in DA neurons. Importantly, nuclear-encoded mitochondrial genes were identified as the major functional category of Nurr1-regulated target genes. These studies indicate that Nurr1 has a key function in sustaining high respiratory function in these cells, and that Nurr1 ablation in mice recapitulates early features of Parkinson's disease. NR4A2 | nuclear receptor | laser capture microdissection | RNA sequencing | orphan receptor U nder experimental conditions, somatic differentiated cells can undergo reprogramming into other cell types or induced pluripotent stem cells (1). This remarkable plasticity raises questions of how the differentiated cellular identity is maintained for extended periods in normal life (2). Of particular relevance is how neurons, which should retain their specific functions for decades in a human brain, stably maintain their unique differentiated properties, and how disrupted maintenance of the correct differentiated identity may be related to disease. Under embryonic development, signaling events induce the expression of transcription factors that combinatorially function to specify appropriate identities and differentiation of specific neuron types. Many of these transcription factors continue to be expressed in adult neurons as well; however, little is known of their functions in the adult brain, or the extent to which they contribute to the stability of the differentiated state (3).Degeneration of ventral midbrain (VMB) dopamine (DA) neurons, particularly neurons of the substantia nigra compacta (SNc), causes many of the characteristic symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). PD is characterized by a progressive pathology involving the appearance of insoluble protein inclusions known as Lewy bodies and eventually the death of neurons. Several studies have indicated that loss of striatal DA and other dopaminergic properties cause symptoms in PD long before cell bodies within the SNc actually die (4). Thus, PD cell pathology may influence differentiated...

The neuroprotective effect of the glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor has been extensively studied in various toxic models of Parkinson's disease. However, it remains unclear whether this neurotrophic factor can protect against the toxicity induced by the aggregation-prone protein α-synuclein. Targeted overexpression of human wild-type α-synuclein in the nigrostriatal system, using adeno-associated viral vectors, causes a progressive degeneration of the nigral dopamine neurons and the development of axonal pathology in the striatum. In the present study, we investigated, using different paradigms of delivery, whether glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor can protect against the neurodegenerative changes and the cellular stress induced by α-synuclein. We found that viral vector-mediated delivery of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor into substantia nigra and/or striatum, administered 2-3 weeks before α-synuclein, was inefficient in preventing the wild-type α-synuclein-induced loss of dopamine neurons and terminals. In addition, glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor overexpression did not ameliorate the behavioural deficit in this rat model of Parkinson's disease. Quantification of striatal α-synuclein-positive aggregates revealed that glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor had no effect on α-synuclein aggregation. These data provide the evidence for the lack of neuroprotective effect of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor against the toxicity of human wild-type α-synuclein in an in vivo model of Parkinson's disease. The difference in neuroprotective efficacy of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor seen in our model and the commonly used neurotoxin models of Parkinson's disease, raises important issues pertinent to the interpretation of the results obtained in preclinical models of Parkinson's disease, and their relevance for the therapeutic use glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor in patients with Parkinson's disease.

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