Transmission of Prion Strains in a Transgenic Mouse Model Overexpressing Human A53T Mutated α-Synuclein

There is a growing interest in the potential roles of misfolded protein interactions in neurodegeneration. To investigate this issue, we inoculated 3 prion strains intracerebrally into transgenic (TgM83) mice that overexpress human A53T alpha-synuclein. In comparison to nontransgenic controls, there was a striking decrease in the incubation periods of scrapie, classic and H-type bovine spongiform encephalopathies (C-BSE and H-BSE), with conservation of the histopathologic and biochemical features characterizing these 3 prion strains. TgM83 mice died of scrapie or C-BSE prion diseases before accumulating the insoluble and phosphorylated forms of alpha-synuclein specific to late stages of synucleinopathy. In contrast, the median incubation time for TgM83 mice inoculated with H-BSE was comparable to that observed when these mice were uninfected, thereby allowing the development of molecular alterations of alpha-synuclein. The last 4 mice of this cohort exhibited early accumulations of H-BSE prion protein along with alpha-synuclein pathology. The results indicate that a prion disease was triggered concomitantly with an overt synucleinopathy in some transgenic mice overexpressing human A53T alpha-synuclein after intracerebral inoculation with an H-BSE prion strain.