AUTHOR=Koh Yong Hui , Tan Li Yi , Ng Shi-Yan 

TITLE=Patient-Derived Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells and Organoids for Modeling Alpha Synuclein Propagation in Parkinson's Disease

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience

VOLUME=12

YEAR=2018

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fncel.2018.00413

DOI=10.3389/fncel.2018.00413

ISSN=1662-5102

ABSTRACT=<p>Parkinson's disease (PD) is an age-associated, progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor impairment and in some cases cognitive decline. Central to the disease pathogenesis of PD is a small, presynaptic neuronal protein known as alpha synuclein (a-syn), which tends to accumulate and aggregate in PD brains as Lewy bodies or Lewy neurites. Numerous <italic>in vitro</italic> and <italic>in vivo</italic> studies confirm that a-syn aggregates can be propagated from diseased to healthy cells, and it has been suggested that preventing the spread of pathogenic a-syn species can slow PD progression. In this review, we summarize the works of recent literature elucidating mechanisms of a-syn propagation, and discussed the advantages in using patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and/or induced neurons to study a-syn transmission.</p>