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α-Synuclein phosphorylation at serine 129 occurs after initial protein deposition and inhibits seeded fibril formation and toxicity

journal contribution
submitted on 2024-04-04, 08:08 and posted on 2024-04-24, 07:21 authored by Simona S. Ghanem, Nour K. Majbour, Nishant N. Vaikath, Mustafa T. Ardah, Daniel Erskine, Nanna Møller Jensen, Muneera Fayyad, Indulekha P. Sudhakaran, Eftychia Vasili, Katerina Melachroinou, Ilham Y. Abdi, Ilaria Poggiolini, Patricia Santos, Anton Dorn, Paolo Carloni, Kostas Vekrellis, Johannes Attems, Ian McKeith, Tiago F. Outeiro, Poul Henning Jensen, Omar M. A. El-Agnaf

α-Synuclein (α-syn) phosphorylation at serine 129 (pS129–α-syn) is substantially increased in Lewy body disease, such as Parkinson’s disease (PD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). However, the pathogenic relevance of pS129–α-syn remains controversial, so we sought to identify when pS129 modification occurs during α-syn aggregation and its role in initiation, progression and cellular toxicity of disease. Using diverse aggregation assays, including real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC) on brain homogenates from PD and DLB cases, we demonstrated that pS129–α-syn inhibits α-syn fibril formation and seeded aggregation. We also identified lower seeding propensity of pS129–α-syn in cultured cells and correspondingly attenuated cellular toxicity. To build upon these findings, we developed a monoclonal antibody (4B1) specifically recognizing nonphosphorylated S129–α-syn (WT–α-syn) and noted that S129 residue is more efficiently phosphorylated when the protein is aggregated. Using this antibody, we characterized the time-course of α-syn phosphorylation in organotypic mouse hippocampal cultures and mice injected with α-syn preformed fibrils, and we observed aggregation of nonphosphorylated α-syn followed by later pS129–α-syn. Furthermore, in postmortem brain tissue from PD and DLB patients, we observed an inverse relationship between relative abundance of nonphosphorylated α-syn and disease duration. These findings suggest that pS129–α-syn occurs subsequent to initial protein aggregation and apparently inhibits further aggregation. This could possibly imply a potential protective role for pS129–α-syn, which has major implications for understanding the pathobiology of Lewy body disease and the continued use of reduced pS129–α-syn as a measure of efficacy in clinical trials.

Other Information

Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
See article on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2109617119

History

Language

  • English

Publisher

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Publication Year

  • 2022

License statement

This Item is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Institution affiliated with

  • Hamad Bin Khalifa University
  • Qatar Biomedical Research Institute - HBKU
  • Neurological Disorders Research Center - QBRI