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Drosophila models for studying iron-related neurodegenerative diseases

Zhou-Jing Zhu, Ka-Chun Wu, Zhong-Ming Qian, Wing-Ho Yung, Ya Ke

School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China； Laboratory of Neuropharmacology, School of Pharmacy, Fudan University, Shanghai 201203, China

Abstract

In recent years, iron has been regarded as a common pathological feature of many neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA). A number of genes involved in iron transport, storage and regulation have been found associated with initiation and progression of neurodegeneration. However, whether iron abnormalities represent a primary or secondary event still remains unknown. Due to the limitation in transgenic rodent model construction and transfection systems, the progress in unraveling the pathogenic role of different iron-related proteins in neurodegenerative diseases has been slow. Drosophila melanogaster, a simple organism which has a shorter lifespan and smaller genome with many conserved genes, and captures many features of human nervous system and neurodegeneration, may help speed up the progress. The characteristics that spatial- and temporal-specific transgenic Drosophila can be easily constructed and raised in large quantity with phenotype easily determined turn Drosophila into an excellent in vivo genetic system for screening iron-related modifiers in different neurodegenerative conditions and hence provide a better picture about the pathogenic contribution of different iron-related protein abnormalities. It is believed that identification of important iron-related genes that can largely stop or even reverse degenerative process in Drosophila models may lead to development of novel therapeutic strategies against neurodegenerative diseases.

Key words: Drosophila; iron; neurodegenerative diseases

Received: 　　Accepted:

Corresponding author: 柯亚　　E-mail: yake@cuhk.edu.hk

Citing This Article：

Zhou-Jing Zhu, Ka-Chun Wu, Zhong-Ming Qian, Wing-Ho Yung, Ya Ke. Drosophila models for studying iron-related neurodegenerative diseases. Acta Physiol Sin 2014; 66 (1): 47-54 (in Chinese with English abstract).