α-synuclein transgenic mice reveal compensatory increases in parkinson's disease-associated proteins dj-1 and parkin and have enhanced α-synuclein and pink1 levels after rotenone treatment

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a severe neurodegenerative disorder characterised by loss of dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra. The pathological hallmarks are cytoplasmic inclusions termed Lewy bodies consisting primarily of aggregated α-synuclein (αSN). Different lines of transgenic mice have been developed to model PD but have failed to recapitulate the hallmarks of this disease. Since treatment of rodents with the pesticide rotenone can reproduce nigrostriatal cell loss and other features of PD, we aimed to test chronic oral administration of rotenone to transgenic mice over-expressing human αSN with the A53T mutation. Initial assessment of this transgenic line for compensatory mol..