Published in:
01-11-2017 | Commentary
The importance of developing strain-specific models of neurodegenerative disease
Author:
Amanda L. Woerman
Published in:
Acta Neuropathologica
|
Issue 5/2017
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Excerpt
Over the last four decades, it has become increasingly clear that the misfolding and accumulation of a small number of proteins cause most, if not all, neurodegenerative diseases [
8,
16,
19,
20]. In the case of a Parkinson’s disease (PD) patient, misfolded α-synuclein aggregates to form Lewy bodies (LBs) and Lewy neurites (LNs) in the brain. While the field of neurodegeneration has made important advances toward understanding how protein misfolding gives rise to disease, there are still a number of important questions that remain about the disease process. In this issue of
Acta Neuropathologica, Loria et al. established important new models of synucleinopathy to address questions about the cell-to-cell movement of α-synuclein in the brain and investigate the role astrocytes play in α-synuclein spread and degradation [
13]. …
