Comparison of commercially available antibodies for the detection of phosphorylated alpha‐synuclein in primary culture of ENS

It is now well established that phosphorylated alpha‐synuclein histopathology, the pathologic hallmark of Parkinson's disease (PD) is not limited to the brain but also extends to the enteric nervous system (ENS). This observation led to the hypothesis that the ENS could play a pivotal role in the development of PD. Research on the enteric synucleinopathy has, however, been hampered by difficulties in detecting phosphorylated alpha‐synuclein in the ENS by Western blotting, even when the transferred membrane is fixed with an optimized protocol. This suggests that the available antibodies used in previous studies lacked of sensitivity for the detection of phosphorylated alpha‐synuclein at Ser129 in enteric neurons. Here, we evaluated three recent commercially available phospho‐alpha‐synuclein antibodies and compared them to two antibodies used in previous research.