Alpha-synuclein as a biomarker of Parkinson’s disease

Abstract

Parkinsons disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder.Toxic aggregation of a small presynaptic protein alpha-synucleinis considered to be the main step in the pathogenesis of PD.Today there are no suitable diagnostic tests based on biochemicalinvestigation of such readily accessible tissues as blood andcerebrospinal fluid (CSF). A search for PD biomarkers aimed atdiagnosis and monitoring of the disease remains very actual. Assuggested in several studies, the use of the peripheral alphasynucleinlevel might be a prognostic marker for PD, but untilnow this question remains open. Evaluation of blood and CSFalpha-synuclein levels in patients with PD compared with agematchedcontrols provided conflicting results. Specific detectionand quantification of oligomeric forms of alpha-synuclein incombination with the improvement of imaging techniques maybe considered as most perspective direction.

Keywords

• parkinson’s disease
• biomarkers
• alpha-synuclein