Transmission of Peripheral-blood α-Synuclein Fibrils Exacerbates Synucleinopathy and Neurodegeneration in Parkinson's Disease by Endothelial Lag3 Endocytosis

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disorder. The pathological feature of PD is abnormal alpha-synuclein (α-syn) formation and transmission. Recent evidence demonstrates that α-syn preformed fibrils (α-syn PFF) can be detected in the serum of PD patients. The peripheral-blood α-syn PFF can cross the blood-brain barrier and aggravate neuronal damage, but the mechanism remains to be elucidated.

Methods: We constructed the PD mouse models of different severity: the mild pathology (A53T ONLY) and the severe pathology (A53T+Brain FIB); this was followed by α-syn PFFs intravenous injection. Then, we used endothelium-specific Lag3 knockout mice (Lag3-ECs-CKO) to decrease the blood α-syn PFFs spreading.

Results: We observed that intravenous transmission of α-syn PFFs significantly aggravated motor deficits, dopaminergic neuron loss, neuroinflammation and pathologic α-syn deposition in A53T ONLY, but not in A53T+Brain FIB. Blocking endothelial Lag3 endocytosis by Lag3-ECs-CKO decreased the blood α-syn PFFs spreading and improved the symptoms and pathogenesis of PD mice.

Conclusions: Our findings reveal the role of peripheral-blood α-syn PFFs transmission in the mild pathology or early-stage PD and the mechanism of endothelial Lag3 endocytosis in the pathology of α-syn transmission. Targeting endothelial Lag3 to prevent α-syn from spreading from the blood to the brain may be a disease-modifying therapy in early-stage PD.