Proteomics Challenges for the Assessment of Synuclein Proteoforms as Clinical Biomarkers in Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease is a complex neurodegenerative disorder resulting in a multifaceted clinical presentation which includes bradykinesia combined with either rest tremor, rigidity, or both, as well as many non-motor symptoms. The motor features of the disorder are associated with the pathological form of alpha synuclein aggregates and fibrils in Lewy bodies and loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. Parkinson’s disease is increasingly considered as a group of underlying disorders with unique genetic, biological, and molecular abnormalities that are likely to respond differentially to a given therapeutic approach. For this reason, it is clinically challenging to treat and at present, no therapy can slow down or arrest the progression of Parkinson’s disease. There is a clear unmet clinical need to develop reliable diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. When disease-modifying treatments become available, prognostic biomarkers are required to support a definitive diagnosis and clinical intervention during the long prodromal period as no clinical implications or symptoms are observed. Robust diagnostic biomarkers would also be useful to monitor treatment response. Potential biomarkers for the sporadic form of Parkinson’s disease have mostly included synuclein species (monomer, oligomer, phosphorylated, Lewy Body enriched fraction and isoforms). In this review, we consider the analysis of synuclein and its proteoforms in biological samples using proteomics techniques (immunoassay and mass spectrometry) applied to neurodegenerative disease research.