@article{uoadl:3498180,
    volume = "133",
    journal = "Parkinsonism and Related Disorders",
    issn = "1353-8020",
    keywords = "Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; alpha-Synuclein; Biomarkers; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; Erythrocytes; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Parkinson Disease; alpha synuclein; biological marker; alpha synuclein; biological marker; adult; Article; blood sampling; chemoluminescence; clinical assessment; controlled study; disease duration; enzyme linked immunosorbent assay; erythrocyte; female; gene mutation; human; major clinical study; male; middle aged; Mini Mental State Examination; Parkinson disease; protein expression; aged; blood; metabolism; very elderly",
    BIBTEX_ENTRY = "article",
    year = "2025",
    author = "Dimoula, Konstantina and Papagiannakis, Nikolaos and Maniati, Matina and Stefanis, Leonidas and Emmanouilidou, Evangelia",
    abstract = "Background: Mostly known for its implication in synucleinopathies, including Parkinson's disease (PD), α-synuclein is predominantly expressed in the nervous system. Most of the peripheral α-synuclein is found in erythrocytes, and several studies have examined a possible association between erythrocytic α-synuclein and PD. Methods: We have used a recently developed ELISA that selectively detects fibrillar and oligomeric α-synuclein to measure aggregated α-synuclein in red blood cells (RBCs) collected from PD patients and age/sex-matched control individuals (n = 35). The PD group included patients without any common mutation (genetically undetermined group, GU-PD, n = 56) as well as mutation carriers in the α-synuclein gene (A53T-PD, n = 28) and glucocerebrosidase gene (GBA-PD, n = 24). Results: We found that the concentration of aggregated α-synuclein in erythrocytes was significantly increased in GU-PD patients compared to controls. A53T-PD and GBA-PD patients exhibited similar levels of erythrocytic aggregated α-synuclein as the control group. The levels of fibrillar/oligomeric α-synuclein in RBCs were reduced in respect to the age of control individuals suggesting that the observed increase in the GU-PD cohort was not due to normal aging. Parallel assessment of monomeric α-synuclein revealed that aggregated, but not total, α-synuclein could discriminate PD patients from control individuals. Conclusions: The elevation of aggregated α-synuclein in GU-PD erythrocytes, which is not related to aging, suggests that these forms may be indicative of PD pathology and possibly accumulate upon disease establishment. As such, aggregated α-synuclein in RBCs could be a potential biomarker for PD diagnosis. © 2025 The Authors",
    title = "Aggregated α-synuclein in erythrocytes as a potential biomarker for idiopathic Parkinson's Disease",
    doi = "10.1016/J.PARKRELDIS.2025.107321"
}