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  • Title: Lewy bodies contain altered alpha-synuclein in brains of many familial Alzheimer's disease patients with mutations in presenilin and amyloid precursor protein genes.
    Author: Lippa CF, Fujiwara H, Mann DM, Giasson B, Baba M, Schmidt ML, Nee LE, O'Connell B, Pollen DA, St George-Hyslop P, Ghetti B, Nochlin D, Bird TD, Cairns NJ, Lee VM, Iwatsubo T, Trojanowski JQ.
    Journal: Am J Pathol; 1998 Nov; 153(5):1365-70. PubMed ID: 9811326.
    Abstract:
    Missense mutations in the alpha-synuclein gene cause familial Parkinson's disease (PD), and alpha-synuclein is a major component of Lewy bodies (LBs) in sporadic PD, dementia with LBs (DLB), and the LB variant of Alzheimer's disease (AD). To determine whether alpha-synuclein is a component of LBs in familial AD (FAD) patients with known mutations in presenilin (n = 65) or amyloid precursor protein (n = 9) genes, studies were conducted with antibodies to alpha-, beta-, and gamma-synuclein. LBs were detected with alpha- but not beta- or gamma-synuclein antibodies in 22% of FAD brains, and alpha-synuclein-positive LBs were most numerous in amygdala where some LBs co-localized with tau-positive neurofibrillary tangles. As 12 (63%) of 19 FAD amygdala samples contained alpha-synuclein-positive LBs, these inclusions may be more common in FAD brains than previously reported. Furthermore, alpha-synuclein antibodies decorated LB filaments by immunoelectron microscopy, and Western blots revealed that the solubility of alpha-synuclein was reduced compared with control brains. The presence of alpha-synuclein-positive LBs was not associated with any specific FAD mutation. These studies suggest that insoluble alpha-synuclein aggregates into filaments that form LBs in many FAD patients, and we speculate that these inclusions may compromise the function and/or viability of affected neurons in the FAD brain.
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