SNCA and synucleinopathy: In addition, recent research has shown that Akkermansia induces intestinal alpha-synuclein aggregation as a result of mitochondrial calcium overload in intestinal enteroendocrine cells, which were hypothesized to be an initiating site for alpha-synucleinopathy in response to environmental factors because they are connected to enteric nerves and found to have adjacent accumulation of alpha-synuclein proteins [118, 119].