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. 2012:2012:614212.
doi: 10.1155/2012/614212. Epub 2012 Mar 13.

Postmortem Interval Influences α-Synuclein Expression in Parkinson Disease Brain

Alexandra Dumitriu  1 , Carlee Moser, Tiffany C Hadzi, Sally L Williamson, Christopher D Pacheco, Audrey E Hendricks, Jeanne C Latourelle, Jemma B Wilk, Anita L Destefano, Richard H Myers
Affiliations

Postmortem Interval Influences α-Synuclein Expression in Parkinson Disease Brain

Alexandra Dumitriu et al. Parkinsons Dis. 2012.

Abstract

Duplications and triplications of the α-synuclein (SNCA) gene increase risk for PD, suggesting increased expression levels of the gene to be associated with increased PD risk. However, past SNCA expression studies in brain tissue report inconsistent results. We examined expression of the full-length SNCA transcript (140 amino acid protein isoform), as well as total SNCA mRNA levels in 165 frontal cortex samples (101 PD, 64 control) using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Additionally, we evaluated the relationship of eight SNPs in both 5' and 3' regions of SNCA with the gene expression levels. The association between postmortem interval (PMI) and SNCA expression was different for PD and control samples: SNCA expression decreased with increasing PMI in cases, while staying relatively constant in controls. For short PMI, SNCA expression was increased in PD relative to control samples, whereas for long PMI, SNCA expression in PD was decreased relative to control samples.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Age at death versus total SNCA expression values adjusted for pH, PMI, and sex in 64 controls.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Adjusted total SNCA expression values by PMI for (a) all samples and (b) only samples with PMI less or equal to 5.5 hours. Controls are depicted as crosses (dotted regression line) and PD samples as circles (solid regression line).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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