Grant: Project Grant

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a devastating, incurable disease of the ageing brain. More than 100,000 Canadians currently suffer from PD, and this number is expected to increase in the near future due to an ageing population. In PD, a protein called alpha-synuclein clumps together in the brain to form aggregates. These aggregates are believed to cause the death of brain cells, which produces the symptoms of PD. A recent breakthrough has revealed that alpha-synuclein aggregates share many similarities with prions, including the ability to spread between cells in the brain. Prions are improperly shaped, infectious proteins that cause brain diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and "mad cow disease". Similar to bacteria and viruses, prions can exist as distinct strains that cause variability in disease symptoms and pathology. The goal of this research is to use genetically modified mice to establish whether alpha-synuclein aggregates can also exist as different strains. In particular, we are interested in determining whether different strains of alpha-synuclein aggregates cause different diseases in mice. The results of these studies will help to clarify whether different strains of alpha-synuclein aggregates are responsible for the patient-to-patient variability observed in PD and related diseases, and will provide improved animal models for testing candidate therapeutics for PD.