Several neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, are characterized neuropathologically by accumulation of misfolded proteins such as α-synuclein that disrupts scaffold molecules in the caveolae. A new study by Ihara et al. in this issue of Neuron shows that a novel scaffold protein, Sept4, may be an important player in modulating the pathological alterations of α-synuclein in models of Parkinson's disease, suggesting that gene therapies targeting scaffold proteins might be effective in the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders.
