More than 100,000 Europeans and 100,000 US-Americans suffer from MSA. Affected individuals either show symptoms similar to those of patients suffering from Parkinson's Disease or have a strong deterioration in their sense of balance. For this reason the disease is often diagnosed incorrectly. Doctors know very little about the pathology of the disease. However, one characteristic is that some brain cells show abnormal changes. Affected mature oligodendrocytes, the cells that form the isolating outer layer surrounding nerve fibers, produce a small protein called alpha-synuclein. They deposit this protein in the form of pathological structures called glial cytoplasmic inclusions.
Healthy mature oligodendrocytes do not produce this protein at all.
Kahle and colleagues "implanted" the human gene for the alpha-synuclein protein into the mouse genome. As a result, the researchers found insoluble inclusion bodies of alpha-synuclein in the mouse's oligodendrocytes. "In patients, the affected cells die as the individual ages. This is something we could not yet observe in our mice," says Philipp Kahle, a researcher at the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany. "But we are confident that in a next step we can produce mice that will also show this symptom. This will help us to understand more about the disease and can help researchers to develop and test drugs against multiple system atrophy."
Prof. Dr. Christian Haass
Abteilung für Biochemie
Adolf-Butenandt-Institut
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
Schillerstrasse 44
80336 München
Tel.: (089) 5996-472 (sekr.)
Fax: (089) 5996-415
E-mail: chaass@pbm.med.uni-muenchen.de
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