Thursday 16 July 2015

Alpha-synuclein immunoreactivity patterns in the enteric nervous system

Further evidence that some staining for alpha-syn can be seen resected GI tissue but that staining patterns may differ between patients and controls...and this in itself may hold more promise as a biomarker than simply the presence of alpha-syn alone...

Neurosci Lett. 2015 Jul 7. pii: S0304-3940(15)30023-9. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2015.07.005. [Epub ahead of print]

Aldecoa I, Navarro-Otano J, Stefanova N, Sprenger F, Seppi K, Poewe W, Cuatrecasas M, Valldeoriola F, Gelpi E, Tolosa E.


We aimed to compare immunoreactivity patterns of four different anti-α-syn antibodies in surgical specimens of the gastrointestinal tract of Parkinson disease and control cases. Surgical specimens from stomach, small and large bowel of 6 PD cases and 12 controls were studied. Primary antibodies: anti-α-syn clone KM51, anti-phosphorylated α-syn Ser129, anti-α-syn clone 15G7 and anti-nitrated α-syn505. We found different immunoreactivity patterns: a) coarse, Lewy-body-like aggregates labelled by the 4 antibodies and detected in 4/6 PD cases and in 1/12 controls; b) distinct punctate cytoplasmic staining of ganglion cells labelled by anti-phosphorylated-α-syn and detected in 3/6 PD cases and 3/12 controls; c) fine diffuse, synaptic-type staining of neural structures labelled by anti-α-syn-15G7 and anti-nitrated-α-syn505 and detected in all subjects. We conclude that different specific and non-specific immunoreactivity patterns are detected in surgical specimens of gastrointestinal tract when using different anti-α-syn antibodies, as they recognize different epitopes and states of alpha-synuclein protein. Coarse aggregates in neural structures seem to be the most promising marker for the diagnosis of Lewy-body parkinsonism when evaluating abnormal α-syn in the gastrointestinal tract.

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