Many human neurodegenerative diseases are poorly understood as well as untreatable, including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases. For some familial forms of these diseases, mutations in specific genes products associated with disease are known, allowing the possibility to model the disease in simple systems in order to address mechanisms of degeneration and to pioneer novel treatments. Toward this end, we applied a new approach to the problem of polyglutamine-induced neurodegeneration by developing a model for this class of human disease in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. These experiments demonstrated that fundamental molecular mechanisms of polyglutamine-induced neurodegeneration are conserved in Drosophila, such that Drosophila genetics can be applied to investigate these human diseases in order to address mechanisms of degeneration and define new means of treatment. Using this model, we have shown that the molecular chaperones, which are highly conserved proteins, are potent modulators of neurodegeneration in vivo. We now propose to apply the powerful molecular genetics of Drosophila in genetic screens to uncover additional modulators of neurodegeneration. The advantage of genetic screens is that they provide the ability to define genes that can influence and modulate pathogenesis without requiring previous knowledge of the mechanisms involved.
The specific aims are to define novel modulators of neurodegeneration in mis-expression and loss-of-function genetic screens, and to molecularly define and biologically characterize these modifiers in order to address their molecular and biological modes of action. By applying the power of Drosophila molecular genetics to address conserved features of polyglutamine-induced degeneration, these studies provide the foundation for new approaches to cures and treatments for human neurodegenerative disease.
