title: Drosophila models for studying iron-related neurodegenerative diseases.
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.
authors.affiliation: 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. yake@cuhk.edu.hk.
authors.forename: Zhou-Jing
authors.initials: ZJ
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Ka-Chun
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Zhong-Ming
authors.initials: ZM
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.forename: Wing-Ho
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Yung
authors.forename: Ya
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ke
mesh_terms: D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000503:physiopathology; D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster; D005621:Friedreich Ataxia / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D007501:Iron; D019636:Neurodegenerative Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology
chemical_list: D007501:Iron