I think this paper adds to the increasing literature on the consequences of extracellular α-synuclein and its role in PD pathogenesis. It represents an important validation of several recent studies showing that α-synuclein can be taken up by neurons from the extracellular space (Desplats et al., 2009; Danzer et al., 2011), that exogenously applied α-synuclein can seed aggregation of intracellular α-synuclein (Luk et al., 2009; Danzer et al., 2009), that α-synuclein oligomers can be transmitted from neuron to neuron and transported in both anterograde and retrograde direction within neurons (Danzer et al., 2011), and that extracellular α-synuclein can have detrimental effects in the recipient cells (Desplats et al., 2009; Emmanouilidou et al., 2010;   Read more

I think this paper adds to the increasing literature on the consequences of extracellular α-synuclein and its role in PD pathogenesis. It represents an important validation of several recent studies showing that α-synuclein can be taken up by neurons from the extracellular space (Desplats et al., 2009; Danzer et al., 2011), that exogenously applied α-synuclein can seed aggregation of intracellular α-synuclein (Luk et al., 2009; Danzer et al., 2009), that α-synuclein oligomers can be transmitted from neuron to neuron and transported in both anterograde and retrograde direction within neurons (Danzer et al., 2011), and that extracellular α-synuclein can have detrimental effects in the recipient cells (Desplats et al., 2009; Emmanouilidou et al., 2010; Danzer et al., 2011). The paper is an important contribution to the field, demonstrating nicely how extracellular α-synuclein may be affecting neuronal cell health.

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