Elsevier

Neuroscience Letters

Volume 397, Issues 1–2, 10–17 April 2006, Pages 15-19
Neuroscience Letters

Neuronal inclusions in sporadic motor neuron disease are negative for alpha-synuclein

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2005.11.056Get rights and content

Abstract

α-Synuclein has been implicated in neurodegenerative diseases characterized by Lewy bodies. However, we have only scanty information on the immunoreactivity of α-synuclein in other inclusion bodies such as the Lewy body-like inclusions and the skein-like inclusions observed in motor neuron disease (MND). In this report, we immunocytochemically investigated inclusion bodies observed in the anterior horn neurons of the spinal cord in 29 patients with sporadic MND. Sixteen age-matched patients without any neurological disease served as controls. In MND patients, we recognized Lewy body-like hyaline inclusions, skein-like inclusions, Bunina bodies, basophilic inclusions, and intracytoplasmic hyaline (colloid) inclusions, but none of them were immunostained for α-synuclein. Our findings in this study do not support the hypothesis that MND could be classified as one of the diseases grouped as α-synucleinopathies.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Prof. Takeshi Iwatsubo (Department of Neuropathology and Neuroscience, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo) for the donation of a polyclonal anti-α-synuclein antibody (anti-PSer 129). This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C) from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.

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