Impaired neuronal activity as a potential factor contributing to the underdeveloped cerebrovasculature in a young Parkinson's disease mouse model

초록

Misfolding of alpha-synuclein (alpha-Syn) in the brain causes cellular dysfunction, leading to cell death in a group of neurons, and consequently causes the progression of Parkinson's disease (PD). Although many studies have demonstrated the pathological connections between vascular dysfunction and neurodegenerative diseases, it remains unclear how neuronal accumulation of alpha-Syn affects the structural and functional aspects of the cerebrovasculature to accelerate early disease progression. Here, we demonstrated the effect of aberrant alpha-Syn expression on the brain vasculature using a PD mouse model expressing a familial mutant form of human alpha-Syn selectively in neuronal cells. We showed that young PD mice have an underdeveloped cerebrovasculature without significant alpha-Syn accumulation in the vasculature. During the early phase of PD, toxic alpha-Syn was selectively increased in neuronal cells, while endothelial cell proliferation was decreased in the absence of vascular cell death or neuroinflammation. Instead, we observed altered neuronal activation and minor changes in the activity-dependent gene expression in brain endothelial cells (ECs) in young PD mice. These findings demonstrated that neuronal expression of mutant alpha-Syn in the early stage of PD induces abnormal neuronal activity and contributes to vascular patterning defects, which could be associated with a reduced angiogenic potential of ECs.

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