Uptake and mitochondrial dysfunction of alpha-synuclein in human astrocytes, cortical neurons and fibroblasts

Nady Braidy, Wei-Ping Gai, Ying Hua Xu, Perminder Sachdev, Gilles Guillemin, Xing-Mai Jiang, J Ballard, Martin Horan, Zhi Ming Fang, Beng Chong, Daniel Chan

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    69 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The accumulation and aggregation of alpha-synuclein (α-syn) in several tissue including the brain is a major pathological hallmark in Parkinson's disease (PD). In this study, we show that α-syn can be taken up by primary human cortical neurons, astrocytes and skin-derived fibroblasts in vitro. Our findings that brain and peripheral cells exposed to α-syn can lead to impaired mitochondrial function, leading to cellular degeneration and cell death, provides additional evidence for the involvement of mitochondrial dysfunction as a mechanism of toxicity of α-syn in human cells.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number20
    Number of pages9
    JournalTranslational Neurodegeneration
    Volume2
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 4 Oct 2013

    Bibliographical note

    Copyright:
    Copyright 2013 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

    Keywords

    • Alpha-synuclein
    • Astrocytes
    • Fibroblasts
    • Mitochondria
    • Neurons

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