TDP-43 in fly neurons and glia. Relevance to ALS. Recent report.

Estes PS, Daniel SG, McCallum AP, Boehringer AV, Sukhina AS, Zwick RA, Zarnescu DC. Motor neurons and glia exhibit specific individualized responses to TDP-43 expression in a Drosophila model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Dis Model Mech. 2013 May;6(3):721-33. PMID: 23471911; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3634655.

From the abstract: "Here we report the phenotypic consequences of expressing wild-type and four different ALS-linked TDP-43 mutations in neurons and glia. ... These findings support the notion that although motor neurons and glia are both involved in ALS pathology, at the cellular level they can exhibit different responses to TDP-43. In addition, our data suggest that individual TDP-43 alleles utilize distinct molecular mechanisms, which will be important for developing therapeutic strategies."