Single molecule fingerprinting applied to the diagnostics of Parkinson's disease

A major breakthrough in Parkinson’s disease research was announced with the identification of the first biomarker and the development of an early diagnosis tool. Alpha-synuclein (αSyn) aggregates, detected in the biofluids of patients with Parkinson’s disease, have the ability to catalyze their own aggregation, leading to an increase in the number and size of aggregates. This self-templated amplification is used by newly developed assays to diagnose Parkinson’s disease and turned the presence of αSyn aggregates into a biomarker of the disease. The seed amplification assays can now diagnose Parkinson’s disease with high sensitivity and specificity and detect prodromal individuals before diagnosis. We have developed a single molecule counting method and instrument to perform diagnostics at the single molecule level. The accurate counting of aggregates in biofluids provides the first quantitative measure of the amyloid load in cerebrospinal fluid. Our work seeks to push this exciting development further by using single molecule “fingerprinting” of these aggregates to stratify patients.