Development of Drosophila melanogaster as a tool for modelling Parkinson disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder that occurs predominantly in people over 50. The patients with PD would exhibit motor symptoms including bradykinesia, muscular rigidity, resting tremor. The typical pathologic features of PD include the formation of Lewy bodies and the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. Since PD is a late-onset disease, diagnosis before the emergence of the movement disorder is difficult but desirable as early intervention is necessary to minimise the progression of the disease. Defining the underlying genetic components of PD could help identify the patients earlier. The known factors of PD are broad. Environmental toxins, age, genetic mutations, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress and protein homeostasis dysregulation contribute to PD. Some genes that possess causal mutations in hereditary parkinsonism in multiplex families have been confirmed. The Queensland Parkinson’s Project (QPP) is a multi-institutional research project that aims to define the causes of PD and identify candidate gene mutations that may lead to inheritable PD. Based on the patient information collected by QPP, the Mellick research group has uncovered 49 potentially new PD genes. However, it is difficult to study the association of such a large number of genes with PD. This study brings a method to screen the potential PD gene suitable for further studying quickly. Drosophila melanogaster (D. melanogaster) is a model insect organism that has a short lifespan, well-defined nervous system and has been used to model a range of human diseases, including PD. Drosophila models of PD typically exhibit one of two PD-like symptoms: locomotor defects or increased sensitivity to oxidative stress. To measure the locomotor function of wild-type and three mutant fly strains, the video analysis software, FreeClimber, was used. Daily mortality after exposure to hydrogen peroxide was used to measure the sensitivity of fly strains to oxidative stress. This study found that locomotor ...