Cellular and animal models to investigate pathogenesis of amyloid aggregation in neurodegenerative diseases

Abnormal aggregation of amyloid proteins, e.g. amyloid β (Aβ), Tau and α-synuclein (α-syn), is closely associated with a variety of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). Cellular and animal models are useful to explore the neuropathology of amyloid aggregates in disease initiation and progression. In this protocol, we describe detailed procedures for how to establish neuronal and PD mouse models to evaluate amyloid pathologies including self-propagation, cell-to-cell transmission, neurotoxicity, and impact on mouse motor and cognitive functions. We use α-syn, a key pathogenic protein in PD, as an example to demonstrate the application of the protocol, while it can be used to investigate the pathologies of other amyloid proteins as well. The established disease models are also useful to assess the activities of drug candidates for therapeutics of neurodegenerative diseases.