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A Drosophila model for Alzheimer’s disease revealed synaptic neuropathy and biochemical alterations
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disease characterized by extensive loss of synaptic connections, neuronal death, and the presence of extracellular amyloid plaques and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles (iNFTs). The extracellular amlyoid plaques are mainly composed of the amyloid beta (Aβ) peptide which formed by proteolytic processing of the amyloid precursor protein (APP). Aβ42peptide oligomerizes, is neurotoxic and readily forms aggregates that accumulate in the brain to form plaques. These oligomers are thought to cause inflammation, oxidative stress and apoptosis, thereby resulting in synaptic and neuronal loss. Although AD is neurodegenerative disorder, current therapies designed to treat it still demonstrate limited efficacy. Silkworm (Bombyx mori) has long been used as food and medicine in Asian countries which is reputed for the treatment of numerous neurological disorders including AD. In this study, we use Drosophila melanogaster which is expressed the human AD-associated protein APP695, BACE and MAPT as the model and initially investigate whether silkworm powder food has positive effect on flies expressing Alzheimer’s status as well as makes the improvement in disease condition by using this AD fly model (This work was carried out with the support of the Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science & Technology Development (Project title: Elucidation the health improvement effects of boiled silk worm larvae, Project No: PJ01082801) Rural Development Administration)
