Internal medicine

Neuroscience

Culprit

Disease

Alpha-synuclein

Myocardial infarction

Biology

Function (biology)

Immunology

Parkinson's disease

Cell biology

Medicine

Immune system

Cell Reports

Alpha-synuclein (αS) is causally involved in the development of Parkinson disease (PD); however, its role in normal vertebrate physiology has remained unknown. Recent studies demonstrate that αS is induced by noroviral infection in the enteric nervous system of children and protects mice against lethal neurotropic viral infection. Additionally, αS is a potent chemotactic activator of phagocytes. In this report, using both wild-type and αS knockout mice, we show that αS is a critical mediator of inflammatory and immune responses. αS is required for the development of a normal inflammatory response to bacterial peptidoglycan introduced into the peritoneal cavity as well as antigen-specific and T cell responses following intraperitoneal immunization. Furthermore, we show that neural cells are the sources of αS required for immune competence. Our report supports the hypothesis that αS accumulates within the nervous system of PD individuals because of an inflammatory/immune response.

Alpha synuclein, the culprit in Parkinson disease, is required for normal immune function