Plasma and serum alpha-synuclein as a biomarker in Parkinson's disease: A meta-analysis

Reliable biomarkers for Parkinson's disease (PD) diagnosis are urgently needed. Alpha-synuclein (α-syn) and its proteoforms play a key role in PD pathology but in vivo measurements have raised conflicting results, and whether α-syn in blood could distinguish PD patients from healthy controls is still controversial.

A systematic literature search yielded 35 eligible studies for meta-analysis reporting the concentration of total, oligomeric or phosphorylated α-syn in plasma and/or serum of PD patients and healthy controls. Standardized mean differences (SMD) were pooled using multivariate/multilevel linear mixed-effects models. Meta-regression analyses were conducted to investigate possible modifiers.

A meta-analysis of 32 articles involving 2683 PD patients and 1838 controls showed a significant overall effect of PD on total α-syn levels (SMD = 0.85, p = 0.004). Meta-regression showed that increased SMD of total α-syn in PD was significantly associated with lower age, shorter disease duration, mild motor impairment, and Immunomagnetic Reduction assay for protein quantification. In contrast, no significant differences were observed for oligomeric or phosphorylated α-syn between PD and controls but increased oligomeric α-syn was significantly associated with shorter disease duration. The heterogeneity among studies was high (>98%).

These findings suggest that increased total plasma/serum α-syn levels in PD primarily occur in early phases of the disease. The evidence obtained from a small number of studies measuring plasma/serum concentrations of oligomeric and phosphorylated species of α-syn shows no difference. The clinical applicability of measuring plasma or serum α-syn species for differentiating PD from healthy control warrants further studies with better clinical profiling of PD patients.