Fig. 4: Aggregate distributions in human brain tissue.
From: Large-scale visualization of α-synuclein oligomers in Parkinson’s disease brain tissue
a, The imaging of grey matter was performed in three areas, each area being a 3 × 3 grid of z stacks (17 slices) spaced 150 µm apart. b, The number of HCs and patients with PD (n = 3), number of tissue sections (n = 15) and number of images taken NHC = 6,074 and NPD = 5,954. c, Examples of analysed FOVs showing only the detected large aggregates. d, The number of large aggregates detected per patient over 1,800 FOVs (5.4 mm2). The mean ± s.d. for large aggregates was 3,866 ± 408 in HCs and 26,314 ± 7712 in PD, the means were compared by a two-tailed two-sample t-test, with P = 0.0147. e,f, Example FOVs of detected α-synuclein oligomers in HC and PD (Braak stage 6), respectively. g, The total number of α-synuclein aggregates in HC and PD tissues. The left panel shows oligomers (<0.04 μm2). The right panel shows large aggregates (>0.04 μm2). The typical Lewy neurites sizes (~5–30 μm2) and Lewy bodies (~30–300 μm2) are shown for reference. h, Violin plot of brightness of detected oligomers truncated at 1.5× IQR. Oligomers in HC had a median of 2,750 photons (MAD of 1,060) and of 3,700 photons (MAD of 1,690) for PD. The bright subpopulation of oligomers is shown in red for PD. i, The total number of detected oligomers per patient above this brightness threshold, 10,280 photons. Error bars are variation in boundary rejection percentage per patient, propagated. *P < 0.05.
