TNF-α and α-synuclein fibrils differently regulate human astrocyte immune reactivity and impair mitochondrial respiration

Russ et al. show that human astrocytes adopt different reactive immune phenotypes when exposed to either TNF-α or alpha-synuclein fibrils, which are exogenous stressors that compete to drive the astrocyte immune reactive response. They also show that PARK2-variant-containing astrocytes exhibit an exacerbated response to the stressors, accompanied by bioenergetic defects.