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Accumulation of alpha-synuclein within the liver, potential role in the clearance of brain pathology associated with Parkinson's disease
Acta Neuropathol Commun. 2021 Mar 20;9(1):46. doi: 10.1186/s40478-021-01136-3.
Juan F Reyes 1 2, Sara Ekmark-Léwen 3, Marina Perdiki 4 5, Therése Klingstedt 6, Alana Hoffmann 7, Emilia Wiechec 4 8, Per Nilsson 9, K Peter R Nilsson 6, Irina Alafuzoff 10, Martin Ingelsson 3, Martin Hallbeck 4 5
Abstract:
Alpha-synuclein (α-syn) aggregation is the hallmark pathological lesion in brains of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and related neurological disorders characterized as synucleinopathies. Accumulating evidence now indicates that α-syn deposition is also present within the gut and other peripheral organs outside the central nervous system (CNS). In the current study, we demonstrate for the first time that α-syn pathology also accumulates within the liver, the main organ responsible for substance clearance and detoxification. We further demonstrate that cultured human hepatocytes readily internalize oligomeric α-syn assemblies mediated, at least in part, by the gap junction protein connexin-32 (Cx32). Moreover, we identified a time-dependent accumulation of α-syn within the liver of three different transgenic (tg) mouse models expressing human α-syn under CNS-specific promoters, despite the lack of α-syn mRNA expression within the liver. Such a brain-to-liver transmission route could be further corroborated by detection of α-syn pathology within the liver of wild type mice one month after a single striatal α-syn injection. In contrast to the synucleinopathy models, aged mice modeling AD rarely show any amyloid-beta (Aß) deposition within the liver. In human post-mortem liver tissue, we identified cases with neuropathologically confirmed α-syn pathology containing α-syn within hepatocellular structures to a higher degree (75%) than control subjects without α-syn accumulation in the brain (57%). Our results reveal that α-syn accumulates within the liver and may be derived from the brain or other peripheral sources. Collectively, our findings indicate that the liver may play a role in the clearance and detoxification of pathological proteins in PD and related synucleinopathies.
PMID: 33743820
Free Full-Text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7980682/
Tags: alpha-synuclein, humans, liver, parkinson's