Subject collection: Drosophila as a Disease Model
- Drug screens of NGLY1 deficiency in worm and fly models reveal catecholamine, NRF2 and anti-inflammatory-pathway activation as potential clinical approaches
Summary: Using worm and fly models of an ultra-rare congenital disorder of glycosylation, we performed repurposing screens and identified the FDA-approved drug aripiprazole as a clinical candidate.
- Spz/Toll-6 signal guides organotropic metastasis in Drosophila
Summary: The authors report Toll-6 and Spätzle as a new pair of guidance molecules mediating organ-specific metastasis behavior by activating JNK signaling, highlighting a novel role for Toll-family receptors.
- Drosophila melanogaster: a simple system for understanding complexity
Summary: This Editorial outlines how research in Drosophila has and continues to help answer complex research questions in genetics, highlighting the value of this relatively simple model organism.
- Dynamic MAPK signaling activity underlies a transition from growth arrest to proliferation in Drosophila scribble mutant tumors
Summary: The authors provide evidence to show that a well-established Drosophila tumor model, caused by loss of apicobasal cell polarity, harbors a surprising degree of plasticity and evolvability along the temporal axis.
- Anti-tumour effects of antimicrobial peptides, components of the innate immune system, against haematopoietic tumours in Drosophila mxc mutants
Summary: Antimicrobial peptides can interact with tumour cells generated in a haematopoietic tissue in Drosophila mxc mutants and have a tumour-suppressive effect on their growth.
- Enhancer of Polycomb and the Tip60 complex repress hematological tumor initiation by negatively regulating JAK/STAT pathway activity
Editor's choice: Using Drosophila as a low-complexity model for human myeloproliferative neoplasms, the authors identified a conserved mechanism by which the Tip60 lysine acetyltransferase acts as a tumor suppressor by repressing JAK protein expression in a histone-independent manner.
- Intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorders ‘on the fly’: insights from Drosophila
Summary: This Review summarizes some of the exciting work that has used Drosophila as a model for the ever-expanding field of intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorders. It highlights disease-relevant assays, emerging themes and future challenges.
- fs(1)h controls metabolic and immune function and enhances survival via AKT and FOXO in Drosophila
Summary: The bromodomain-containing protein FS(1)H is required in the Drosophila fat body for normal lifespan and metabolic and immune function, largely via the insulin pathway.
- One hundred years of Drosophila cancer research: no longer in solitude
Summary: This Special Article summarises the history of Drosophila as a model to understand the cancer problem, from the initial work carried out by Mary Stark 100 years ago to today.
- Individual components of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodelling complex have distinct roles in memory neurons of the Drosophila mushroom body
Summary: The SWI/SNF chromatin remodelling complex is the most over-represented protein complex in the intellectual disability. Different components of this complex have distinct roles in development and function of memory-forming neurons in the Drosophila mushroom body.