DESCRIPTION Alpha-synuclein translation is governed, at least in part, by an iron-responsive element (IRE) in the 5ΓÇÔ untranslated region (5ΓÇÔ-UTR) stem-loop of alpha-synuclein mRNA. Iron-responsive elements (IREs) are RNA stem loops in the UTRs of ferritin and transferring-receptor mRNAs that are critical to iron homeostasis (5, 6). However, the protein binding profile of the alphasynuclein IRE is different from the canonical IREs of iron homeostasis. These findings reflect the sensitivity of this RNA sequence as a probe target. The IRE of alpha-synuclein is known to interact with iron regulatory protein-1 (IRP-1), which causes an increase in alpha-synuclein translation. There are currently no small molecules which activate the expression of alphasynuclein by this mechanism (see Section 4.1, Table 2). (MLP Probes)