Enteric synucleinopathy: real entity or only a trendy concept?

Authors

  • Adrien de Guilhem de Lataillade Université de Nantes, Inserm, TENS, The Enteric Nervous System in Gut and Brain Diseases, IMAD, Nantes, France; CHU Nantes, Department of Neurology, Nantes, F-44093, France
  • Thibaud Lebouvier Univ. Lille, Inserm URM_S1172, CHU Lille, DistAlz, Licend, F-59000 Lille, France
  • Wendy Noble King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Department of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience, Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute, 5 Cutcombe Road, Camberwell, London. SE5 9RX, UK
  • Laurene Leclair-Visonneau Université de Nantes, Inserm, TENS, The Enteric Nervous System in Gut and Brain Diseases, IMAD, Nantes, France
  • Pascal Derkinderen Université de Nantes, Inserm, TENS, The Enteric Nervous System in Gut and Brain Diseases, IMAD, Nantes, France; CHU Nantes, Department of Neurology, Nantes, F-44093, France

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17879/freeneuropathology-2020-2920

Keywords:

Synucleinopathies, Tauopathies, Enteric nervous system, Aggregates, Alpha-synuclein, Parkinson’s disease

Abstract

An accumulating body of literature has emerged in the past 25 years to show that Parkinson’s disease (PD) is not only a disorder of the brain but also of the gastrointestinal tract and more generally of the gut-brain axis. Gastrointestinal symptoms occur in almost every PD patient at some point and in nearly every case examined pathologically autopsy studies find alpha-synuclein deposits, the pathological hallmarks of PD, in the enteric nervous system. This concept of ‘enteric synucleinopathy’ led to the hypothesis that the enteric nervous system might play a pivotal role in the initiation and spreading of PD. Although this hypothesis opens up interesting perspectives on the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders, some important questions are still pending. The present opinion paper describes and compares the physiological and pathophysiological properties of alpha-synuclein in the brain and the enteric nervous system. We conclude that the existing data supports the existence of pathological alpha-synuclein species in the gut in PD. We also discuss if gut-brain interactions are important in other neurodegenerative disorders.

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Published

2020-08-28

How to Cite

de Guilhem de Lataillade, A., Lebouvier, T., Noble, W., Leclair-Visonneau, L., & Derkinderen, P. (2020). Enteric synucleinopathy: real entity or only a trendy concept?. Free Neuropathology, 1, 26. https://doi.org/10.17879/freeneuropathology-2020-2920

Issue

Section

Opinion Pieces