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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Oct 17.
Published in final edited form as: FEBS Lett. 2013 Mar 13;587(8):1128–1138. doi: 10.1016/j.febslet.2013.02.049

Figure 1. A schematic diagram of the possible accessible states of non-acetylated and acetylated αsyn.

Figure 1

The right side represents two possible pathological aggregation pathways from the unfolded monomeric ensemble to 1) insoluble fibrils through on-pathway transient oligomeric intermediates and 2) to off-pathway soluble oligomers. Off-pathway soluble oligomers represent non-fibrillar end products of aggregation. The left side presents 1) the recent proposal that αsyn can exist as a soluble fibril resistant helical tetramer which is acetylated, and 2) other known oligomers that are not toxic such as methionine oxidized oligomers. It is proposed that the non-pathological tetramer needs to dissociate to the monomeric ensemble before pathological aggregation can occur (dark arrow).