Balancing two forms of SNCA protein could help manage Parkinson’s, study finds Premium

Mysterious SNCA protein linked to Parkinson's disease, researchers aim to balance SNCA populations for treatment.

Synuclein alpha (SNCA) is a mysterious protein. It’s present in healthy cells but we don’t know what it does there. It is notorious for its involvement in age-related neurodegenerative diseases. Twenty-seven years ago, researchers first associated SNCA with Parkinson’s disease. People with this disease lose neurons that communicate with each other using dopamine as a neurotransmitter in a part of their brains.

These dopaminergic neurons have been found to contain aggregated masses of proteins called Lewy bodies. Most of these proteins are SNCA.

Since then, researchers have reported SNCA in similar aggregates in the brains of people with other neurodegenerative diseases as well. But its presence is most prominent in brains with Parkinson’s.

SNCA is abundant in neurons, especially in dopaminergic neurons. It is found near the nuclei of these cells and at the junctions between two neurons. It’s capable of misfolding as well as forming filamentous structures. So unlike most other proteins, which take up predictable three-dimensional structures, SNCA can fold in multiple ways. Misfolded proteins don’t function correctly.

But beyond these observations, researchers don’t understand the dynamics of the formation of these aggregates and how exactly they affect neurons.

A recent study from Swasti Raychaudhuri’s lab at the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, published in the Journal of Cell Science, reported two ways in which SNCA is present as aggregates in cells: one that interferes with the structural integrity of cells’ nuclei and another that allows the cell to degrade misfolded proteins. The researchers found that the former are related to diseased states while the latter is important for healthy cells.

As such, the study highlights the importance of striking a balance between these two SNCA populations to manage Parkinson’s disease.