Appendectomy is protective against Parkinson’s Disease
The appendix harbors a-synuclein in truncated forms amenable to aggregation
We then analyzed appendix tissue obtained from people not diagnosed with PD who underwent routine appendectomies and found that they contained high levels of intraneuronal a-synuclein aggregates. The tissue was also rich in truncated forms of a-synuclein, analogous to those seen in Lewy body pathology in PD. Appendix tissue from healthy individuals induced a rapid aggregation of recombinant monomeric a-synuclein in vitro.
The appendix as a natural harbor
When we characterized the a-synuclein present in the appendix of healthy people and patients with PD, we invariably found an unexpected abundance of truncated a-synuclein forms, exceeding the quantities we observed in the substantia nigra of both patients with PD and normal subjects. Thus, a high degree of proteolytic turnover of a-synuclein is a likely feature of the appendix.