20The sirtuins are highly conserved nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD + )-dependent en-21 zymes that play a broad role in cellular metabolism and aging. Mitochondrial sirtuin 3 22 (SIRT3) is downregulated in aging and age-associated diseases such as cancer and neuro-23 degeneration and plays a major role in maintaining mitochondrial function and preventing 24 oxidative stress. Mitochondria dysfunction is central to the pathogenesis of Parkinson disease 25 with mutations in mitochondrial-associated proteins such as PINK1 and parkin causing famil-26 ial Parkinson disease. Here, we demonstrate that the presence of alpha-synuclein (αsyn) oli-27 gomers in mitochondria induce a corresponding decrease in mitochondrial SIRT3 activity and 28 decreased mitochondrial biogenesis. We show that SIRT3 downregulation in the presence of 29 αsyn accumulation is accompanied by increased phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein 30 kinase (AMPK) and cAMP-response element binding protein (CREB), as well as increased 31 phosphorylation of dynamin-related protein 1 (DRP1) and decreased levels of optic atrophy 1 32 (OPA1), which is indicative of impaired mitochondrial dynamics. Treatment with the AMPK 33 agonist 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide-1-β-d-ribofuranoside (AICAR) restores SIRT3 ex-34 pression and activity and improves mitochondrial function by decreasing αsyn oligomer for-35 mation. The accumulation of αsyn oligomers in mitochondria corresponds with SIRT3 down-36 regulation not only in an experimental cellular model, but also in vivo in a rodent model of 37 Parkinson disease, and importantly, in human post mortem brains with neuropathologically 38 confirmed Lewy body disease (LBD). Taken together our findings suggest that pharmacolog-39 ically increasing SIRT3 levels will counteract αsyn-induced mitochondrial dysfunction by 40 normalizing mitochondrial bioenergetics. These data support a protective role for SIRT3 in 41 Parkinson disease-associated pathways and reveals significant mechanistic insight into the 42 interplay of SIRT3 and αsyn. 43 44 45 46 Abbreviations: SIRT3, Sirtuin 3; α-synuclein; αsyn; AMPK, adenosine monophosphate acti-47 vated protein kinase; CREB, cAMP-response element binding protein; DRP1, dynamin-48 related protein 1; OPA1, optic atrophy 1; HO-1, heme oxygenase-1; SOD2, superoxide dis-49 mutase 2; mtROS, mitochondrial reactive oxygen species. 50 51Alpha-synuclein (αsyn) accumulation is believed to be a key step in the pathogenesis of Par-53 kinson's disease and related alpha-synucleinopathies. Despite predominant localization in the 54 cytosol, αsyn is found localized to mitochondria in post-mortem Parkinson's disease brain 55 (Devi et al., 2008). Mitochondrial accumulation of αsyn has been associated with impairment 56 of complex-I dependent respiration, decreased mitochondria membrane potential, and in-57 creased levels of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mtROS) in multiple cellular models 58 (Hsu et al., 2000; Devi et al., 2008; Reeve et al., 2015; Ludtmann et al., 2018). The evidence 59 suppo...