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- Just, Mie Kristine, et al.
(författare)
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Alpha-Synuclein Strain Variability in Body-First and Brain-First Synucleinopathies
- 2022
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. - : FRONTIERS MEDIA SA. - 1663-4365. ; 14
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Pathogenic alpha-synuclein (asyn) aggregates are a defining feature of neurodegenerative synucleinopathies, which include Parkinsons disease, Lewy body dementia, pure autonomic failure and multiple system atrophy. Early accurate differentiation between these synucleinopathies is challenging due to the highly heterogeneous clinical profile at early prodromal disease stages. Therefore, diagnosis is often made in late disease stages when a patient presents with a broad range of motor and non-motor symptoms easing the differentiation. Increasing data suggest the clinical heterogeneity seen in patients is explained by the presence of distinct asyn strains, which exhibit variable morphologies and pathological functions. Recently, asyn seed amplification assays (PMCA and RT-QuIC) and conformation-specific ligand assays have made promising progress in differentiating between synucleinopathies in prodromal and advanced disease stages. Importantly, the cellular environment is known to impact strain morphology. And, asyn aggregate pathology can propagate trans-synaptically along the brain-body axis, affecting multiple organs and propagating through multiple cell types. Here, we present our hypothesis that the changing cellular environments, an asyn seed may encounter during its brain-to-body or body-to-brain propagation, may influence the structure and thereby the function of the aggregate strains developing within the different cells. Additionally, we aim to review strain characteristics of the different synucleinopathies in clinical and preclinical studies. Future preclinical animal models of synucleinopathies should investigate if asyn strain morphology is altered during brain-to-body and body-to-brain spreading using these seeding amplification and conformation-specific assays. Such findings would greatly deepen our understanding of synucleinopathies and the potential link between strain and phenotypic variability, which may enable specific diagnosis of different synucleinopathies in the prodromal phase, creating a large therapeutic window with potential future applications in clinical trials and personalized therapeutics.
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| 2. |
- Sonnay, Sarah, et al.
(författare)
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Astrocytic and neuronal oxidative metabolism are coupled to the rate of glutamate–glutamine cycle in the tree shrew visual cortex
- 2018
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Ingår i: GLIA. - : Wiley. - 0894-1491. ; 66:3, s. 477-491
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Astrocytes play an important role in glutamatergic neurotransmission, namely by clearing synaptic glutamate and converting it into glutamine that is transferred back to neurons. The rate of this glutamate–glutamine cycle (VNT) has been proposed to couple to that of glucose utilization and of neuronal tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that glutamatergic neurotransmission is also coupled to the TCA cycle rate in astrocytes. For that we investigated energy metabolism by means of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in the primary visual cortex of tree shrews (Tupaia belangeri) under light isoflurane anesthesia at rest and during continuous visual stimulation. After identifying the activated cortical volume by blood oxygenation level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging, 1H MRS was performed to measure stimulation-induced variations in metabolite concentrations. Relative to baseline, stimulation of cortical activity for 20 min caused a reduction of glucose concentration by −0.34 ± 0.09 µmol/g (p < 0.001), as well as a −9% ± 1% decrease of the ratio of phosphocreatine-to-creatine (p < 0.05). Then 13C MRS during [1,6-13C]glucose infusion was employed to measure fluxes of energy metabolism. Stimulation of glutamatergic activity, as indicated by a 20% increase of VNT, resulted in increased TCA cycle rates in neurons by 12% ((VTCA n, p < 0.001), p < 0.001) and in astrocytes by 24% ((VTCA g, p = 0.007). We further observed linear relationships between VNT and both VTCA n and VTCA g. Altogether, these results suggest that in the tree shrew primary visual cortex glutamatergic neurotransmission is linked to overall glucose oxidation and to mitochondrial metabolism in both neurons and astrocytes.
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