[Perspective] Immune receptor for pathogenic α-synuclein

In neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, specific proteins misfold into β sheet–rich conformations that aggregate. For Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia, the hallmark pathology is neuronal inclusions of aggregated α-synuclein called Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites. The spreading of these lesions in the brain is at least partly the result of prionlike self-propagation and cell-to-cell transfer of pathogenic α-synuclein assemblies (1). Inoculat