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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Feb 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Nutr Biochem. 2018 Nov 14;64:170–181. doi: 10.1016/j.jnutbio.2018.10.019

Fig. 4. Select brain-accumulating microbial-generated phenolic acid metabolites potently interfere with α-synuclein protofibril formation.

Fig. 4.

Spontaneous assembly of monomeric α-synuclein into protofibrils was monitored using the ThT assay. ThT binds to beta-sheet contents α-synuclein protofils and increasing ThT flourescence (FU, in arbitrary fluorescence units) reflects the presence of higher contents of α-synuclein protofibrils. We note that ThT fluorescence is not a direct measure of fibril content. However, since β-sheet formation correlates with fibril formation, ThT fluorescence is a useful surrogate marker [32]. (A, B, C) Monomeric α-synuclein was incubated for 0–94 hours at 37°C in the presence of vehicle (○), or individual phenolic acids at a low dose (LD, equal molar concentration of phenolic acid relative to α-synuclein) (●), or a high dose (HD, 4-fold higher molar concentration of phenolic acid relative to α-synuclein) (■). Phenolic acids tested were 3-HBA (A), 3,4-diHBA (B) or 3-HPPA (C).