Saturday, September 27, 2014

Fly study related to pesticide-induced neurotoxicity--links to Parkinson's disease

Cassar M, Issa AR, Riemensperger T, Petitgas C, Rival T, Coulom H, Iché-Torres M, Han KA, Birman S. A dopamine receptor contributes to paraquat-induced neurotoxicity in Drosophila. Hum Mol Genet. 2014 Aug 25. pii: ddu430. PMID: 25158689.

From the abstract: "Long-term exposure to environmental oxidative stressors, like the herbicide paraquat (PQ), has been linked to the development of Parkinson's disease (PD), the most frequent neurodegenerative movement disorder. Paraquat is thus frequently used in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and other animal models to study PD and the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons (DNs) that characterizes this disease. Here, we show that a D1-like dopamine (DA) receptor, DAMB, actively contributes to the fast central nervous system (CNS) failure induced by PQ in the fly. ... Further studies of DAMB signaling in Drosophila could have implications for better understanding DA-related neurodegenerative disorders in humans."

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