Cardiomyopathies & the fly. Recent review.

This review provides background on key aspects of using Drosophila as a model system and discusses how the fly can be used to model cardiomyopathies. See especially Fig. 2.

From the review: "Drosophila genetics provides a powerful system to identify genes and pathways that potentially contribute to cardiomyopathies and serves as a platform to validate candidate human polymorphisms associated with cardiomyopathies."

Wolf MJ. Modeling dilated cardiomyopathies in Drosophila. Trends Cardiovasc Med. 2012 Apr;22(3):55-61. doi: 10.1016/j.tcm.2012.06.012. PubMed PMID: 22863366.

LRRK2 and PD. Recent reports.

Macleod DA, Rhinn H, Kuwahara T, Zolin A, Di Paolo G, Maccabe BD, Marder KS, Honig LS, Clark LN, Small SA, Abeliovich A. RAB7L1 Interacts with LRRK2 to Modify Intraneuronal Protein Sorting and Parkinson's Disease Risk. Neuron. 2013 Feb 6;77(3):425-39. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.11.033. PubMed PMID: 23395371.

From the Abstract:  "Deficiency of the PARK16 locus gene RAB7L1 in primary rodent neurons, or of a RAB7L1 ortholog in Drosophila dopamine neurons, recapitulated degeneration observed with expression of a familial PD mutant form of LRRK2, whereas RAB7L1 overexpression rescued the LRRK2 mutant phenotypes."

And

Hindle S, Afsari F, Stark M, Middleton CA, Evans GJ, Sweeney ST, Elliott CJ. Dopaminergic expression of the Parkinsonian gene LRRK2-G2019S leads to non-autonomous visual neurodegeneration, accelerated by increased neural demands for energy. Hum Mol Genet. 2013 Feb 7. PubMed PMID: 23396536.

From the abstract:  "We investigated the effect of LRRK2 mutations (the most common cause of inherited PD) on Drosophila electroretinograms (ERGs). We reveal progressive loss of photoreceptor function in flies expressing LRRK2-G2019S in dopaminergic neurons."

X-linked Infantile Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Fly model. Recent report.

Liu HY, Pfleger CM. Mutation in e1, the ubiquitin activating enzyme, reduces Drosophila lifespan and results in motor impairment. PLoS One. 2013;8(1):e32835. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0032835. Epub 2013 Jan 29. PubMed PMID: 23382794; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3558519.

High-throughput compound screen with follow-up in fly model. Relevance to Alzheimer's disease. Recent report.

McKoy AF, Chen J, Schupbach T, Hecht MH. A novel inhibitor of amyloid β (Aβ) peptide aggregation: from high throughput screening to efficacy in an animal model of Alzheimer disease. J Biol Chem. 2012 Nov 9;287(46):38992-9000. PMID: 22992731; PMCID: PMC3493940.

Fly research and malignancy. Recent Review.

This review provides historical perspective and contemporary critique regarding the impact of fly research on understanding cancer biology and developing new treatments.

Gonzalez C. Drosophila melanogaster: a model and a tool to investigate malignancy and identify new therapeutics. Nat Rev Cancer. 2013 Feb 7. doi: 10.1038/nrc3461. PubMed PMID: 23388617.