α-synuclein seed amplification in Parkinson's disease – Authors' reply

Αlpha-Synuclein Induced Immune Response Triggers Parkinson’s Disease-Like Symptoms

“…It is also important to note that the model and successful disease penetrance is dependent on individual immune competency and different environmental elements and microbiome investigation should examine the way the whole protein is processed and presented by the MHCII machinery on Antigen-Presenting Cells, and whether border-associated macrophages mediate the neuroinflammation response as it has been demonstrated in an alpha-synuclein model of PD (24). Misfolded α-synuclein can be detected in blood samples of PD patients by a seed amplification assay (SAA), and this is negatively correlated with disease duration, indicating that α-synuclein is a reliable predictor of PD onset in prodromal cases (5). It would be interesting to further assess if, together with α-synuclein, immune activation also represents a valid predictor of disease onset.…”

“…Evidence from seed amplification assays reports that α-synuclein represents a robust Parkinson's progression marker in humans providing high sensitivity to participants with PD and detection of prodromal cases (5). Research in recent years has also described the highly immunogenic nature of α-synuclein, identifying specific α-synuclein-derived epitopes that drive both innate and adaptive immunity, even in cases that precede the development of PD symptoms (6), suggesting that α-synuclein could participate to the early, prodromal stages of the disease.…”