Biophys. J. 98, 1302–1311 (2010)

Researchers in Belgium have spied on the earliest steps in a process that leads to Parkinson's disease: the formation of protein clumps in the brain.

Yves Engelborghs and his colleagues at the University of Leuven used a technique called fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, which tracks the size of molecules by measuring their diffusion rates. The team watched individually labelled α-synuclein proteins in vitro as they bunched together.

These clumps are found in larger structures called Lewy bodies in the neurons of people with Parkinson's disease. The team found that the early protein clumps formed in regions in which α-synuclein proteins were highly concentrated. The proteins in these clumps adopted a shape intermediate between those of the individual proteins and those of proteins in the final, toxic aggregates found in Lewy bodies.