title: Parkinson's Disease: Assay of Phosphorylated α-Synuclein in Skin Biopsy for Early Diagnosis and Association with Melanoma.
abstract: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, in which a small naturally unfolded protein α-synuclein plays an essential role. α-Synuclein belongs to a synuclein family comprising three members: α, β, and γ-synucleins associated with neurodegenerative and neoplastic diseases and involved in development. Several studies revealed that α-synuclein is present not only in the brain, but also in the skin and other peripheral tissues. This finding open a new approach to PD diagnosis based on the assay of α-synuclein from a biological sample of a living patient. Furthermore, PD is associated with an increased risk of skin melanoma. An important posttranslational modification of α-synuclein is phosphorylation at serine-129, which may convert the protein into pathological species both in PD and melanoma. Thus, analysis of phosphorylated α-synuclein might be an important diagnostic test for both diseases providing additional information about the mechanism of pathology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Kansas University Medical Center, Kansas City, 3901, Rainbow Boulevard, Kansas City, KS 66160, USA. asurguchov@kumc.edu.
authors.forename: Andrei
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Surguchov
keywords: Parkinson’s disease; diagnosis; melanoma; neurodegeneration; phosphorylation; synuclein