ABSTRACT
The common fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) is one model organism that has played an important role in unravelling the pathogenic processes that cause human neurodegenerative disease. In this chapter, the authors review Drosophila models of tauopathies and focus on one particular model and its contribution to their understanding of the pathogenic mechanisms that underlie these disorders. Tauopathies are neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, fronto-temporal dementia, Pick’s disease and others whose pathological hallmarks are built from the microtubule-associated protein tau. Drosophila models of tauopathies hold huge potential for enabling the dissection of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie the loss of neuronal function and for the development of therapeutic interventions that may ultimately attempt to arrest the disease progression. These Drosophila models have made a considerable contribution to the understanding of the cellular events that underlie the early pre-tangle and pre-death stages of degeneration in tauopathies.
