Cryo-EM structure of alpha-synuclein fibrils amplified by PMCA from PD and MSA patient brains

Abstract Synucleinopathies are neurodegenerative diseases related to the aggregation of the protein alpha-synuclein (aSyn). Among these diseases, Parkinson’s disease (PD) and multiple system atrophy (MSA) are most prevalent. aSyn can readily form different fibrillar polymorphs, if exposed to an air-water interface or by templating with pre-existing fibrils. We here report the structures of three fibrillar polymorphs that were obtained after seeding monomeric aSyn with PD and MSA patients brain homogenates using protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA). Seeding with a control brain homogenate did not produce fibrils, and seeding with other in vitro generated fibrillar polymorphs as a control faithfully produced polymorphs of a different type. The here determined fibril structures from PD and MSA brain tissue represent new folds, which partly resemble that of previously reported in vitro generated fibrils from Y39 phosphorylated aSyn protein. The relevance of these fibrils for synucleinopathies in humans remains to be further investigated. Impact Statement Neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) are suspected to be causatively related to the prion-like propagation of aggregates of the protein alpha-synuclein (aSyn). The fibril structures reported here were obtained after seeding from diseased human brain homogenate and differ from all previously published aSyn fibril arrangements. In case these fibrils would turn out to be the long sought causative agents of these diseases, their structures might lead to the development of therapeutic strategies to modify these diseases and to a better understanding of the mechanistic processes that lead to neurodegeneration and spreading of the diseases.