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=Volume 12 - 2018

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=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, which tends to accumulate and aggregate in PD brains as Lewy bodies or Lewy neurites. Numerous in vitro and in vivo studies confirm that alpha synuclein aggregates can be propagated from diseased to healthy cells, and it has been suggested that preventing the spread of pathogenic alpha synuclein species can slow PD progression. In this review, we summarize the works of recent literature elucidating mechanisms of alpha synuclein propagation, and discussed the advantages in using patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells to study alpha synuclein transmission.