The presynaptic α-synuclein is a prime suspect for contributing to Lewy pathology and
clinical aspects of diseases, including Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, and
a Lewy body variant of Alzheimer's disease. Here we examined the pathogenic mechanism
of neuronal cell death induced by α-synuclein. The exogenous addition of α-synuclein
caused a marked decrease of cell viability in primary and immortalized neuronal cells. The
neuronal cell death appeared to be correlated with the Rab5A-specific endocytosis of α …