Making yeast tremble: yeast models as tools to study neurodegenerative disorders

Genetic experiments in mice, which are indispensable for studying the molecular basis of neurological disorders, have certain limitations that include slow pace and high costs. It is therefore not surprising that in recent years numerous neurological diseases have been modeled in genetically tractable organisms, including Drosophila, Caenorhabditis elegans, and yeast. Yeast models in particular have a special advantage with respect to genome-wide experimental approaches as a result of the completed sequencing of the genome, the availability of a collection of precise deletion mutants of every gene in the genome, and the rapidly evolving databases of yeast protein-protein interactions and gene expression patterns. These large and easily accessible bodies of information, coupled with the ease with which yeast can be manipulated genetically, have led to dissection of novel mechanisms of neurodegenerative disorders. In this review, we discuss how studies in yeast models have already resulted in significant insights into the understanding of neurodegenerative disorders that include prion disease, Parkinson's disease, polyglutamine expansion disorders, Friedreich's ataxia, and Batten disease.