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Updated: Jul 31, 2026
Assessing Neurodegenerative Phenotypes in Drosophila Dopaminergic Neurons by Climbing Assays and Whole Brain Immunostaining
Published on: April 24, 2013
Expression of human amyloid precursor protein in Drosophila melanogaster nerve cells causes a decrease in presynaptic
D I Rodin1, A L Schwarzman2, S V Sarantseva
1Molecular and Radiation Biophysics Division, National Research Centre "Kurchatov Institute" B.P. Konstantinov Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, Gatchina, Russia rodin.dmitry@icloud.com.
Abstract:
Amyloid precursor protein (APP) is a key player in Alzheimer's disease. The proteolytic cleavage of APP results in various short peptide fragments including the toxic amyloid-beta peptide, which is a main component of senile plaques. However, the functions of APP and its processed fragments are not yet well understood. Here, using real-time polymerase chain reaction, we demonstrate that exogenous expression of APP, its mutant form APP-Swedish, or two truncated forms in Drosophila melanogaster causes a significant (P ≤ 0.05) drop in the mRNA levels of the presynaptic proteins synaptotagmin-1 and neuronal synaptobrevin. The results obtained from this study suggest a potential role of APP or its fragments in the regulation of synaptic gene transcription.
