Alpha-synuclein was the first gene identified for Parkinsons disease and has been associated with a number of detrimental effects in cells and in animal models. The protein itself is expressed at high levels in neurons where it is associated with membranous structures including presynaptic vesicles. One difficult question is why a-synuclein would, at least in some circumstances, lead to the death of neurons. One possibility is that aspects of neurotransmitter metabolism are important and we have previously shown that some groups of neurons are more susceptible than others to a-synuclein toxicity. Dopaminergic cells are especially vulnerable and we have recently reported that increasing expression of a-synuclein makes human neuroblastoma cells more susceptible to dopamine associated toxicity. Ongoing work in the lab is aimed at understanding the normal and toxic functions of a-synuclein.
| Bandres-Ciga, Sara; Cookson, Mark R (2017) Alpha-synuclein triggers T-cell response. Is Parkinson's disease an autoimmune disorder? Mov Disord 32:1327 |
| Wang, Wei; Nguyen, Linh T T; Burlak, Christopher et al. (2016) Caspase-1 causes truncation and aggregation of the Parkinson's disease-associated protein ?-synuclein. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 113:9587-92 |
| Kumaran, Ravindran; Cookson, Mark R (2015) Pathways to Parkinsonism Redux: convergent pathobiological mechanisms in genetics of Parkinson's disease. Hum Mol Genet : |
| Cookson, Mark R (2014) Lardy brains make Parkinson's disease mice worse. J Neurochem 131:697-8 |
| Dehay, Benjamin; Martinez-Vicente, Marta; Caldwell, Guy A et al. (2013) Lysosomal impairment in Parkinson's disease. Mov Disord 28:725-32 |
| Choi, Jae Hyuk; Stubblefield, Barbara; Cookson, Mark R et al. (2011) Aggregation of ?-synuclein in brain samples from subjects with glucocerebrosidase mutations. Mol Genet Metab 104:185-8 |
| Cookson, Mark R (2011) A feedforward loop links Gaucher and Parkinson's diseases? Cell 146:9-11 |
| Wang, Wei; Perovic, Iva; Chittuluru, Johnathan et al. (2011) A soluble ?-synuclein construct forms a dynamic tetramer. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 108:17797-802 |
| Bisaglia, Marco; Greggio, Elisa; Maric, Dragan et al. (2010) Alpha-synuclein overexpression increases dopamine toxicity in BE2-M17 cells. BMC Neurosci 11:41 |
| Cookson, Mark R (2009) alpha-Synuclein and neuronal cell death. Mol Neurodegener 4:9 |
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