EditorialDrosophila Models of Human Disease

Louise Cheng,1 Antonio Baonza ,2 and Daniela Grifoni 3

1Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre Building, 305 Grattan Street,Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia2Centro de Biologıa Molecular “Severo Ochoa”, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Calle Nicolas Cabrera 1, 28049 Madrid, Spain3Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, University of Bologna, Via Selmi 3, 40126 Bologna, Italy

Correspondence should be addressed to Daniela Grifoni; daniela.grifoni@unibo.it

Received 4 July 2018; Accepted 8 July 2018; Published 30 August 2018

Copyright © 2018 Louise Cheng et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

This special edition was assembled around the theme of howthe fruit fly Drosophila is used as a disease model.Drosophilahas been used productively as a model organism for overa century to study a range of diverse biological processes,including genetics and inheritance, embryonic development,organ regeneration, learning, behaviour, and aging. As mostof the fundamental biological mechanisms and signallingpathways that control development and survival are con-served throughout evolution, there are many precedents thatdemonstrate the utility of usingDrosophila as amodel system.Mechanistic details of genetic and molecular regulation ofcellular processes can be thus established in the fruit fly andthen transferred to other organisms.

Drosophila research has produced numerous seminal dis-coveries for more than a century, which have translated intobeneficial health outcomes, starting with Morgan’s landmarkdiscovery that genes are carried on chromosomes, which hasunderpinned modern genetics. The striking observation thataround 75% of the genes responsible for human diseasesare evolutionarily conserved across animal species, includ-ing Drosophila, has meant that the study of this organismhas facilitated the understanding of multiple aspects of anincreasing number of human diseases. Furthermore, theability to perform sophisticated genetics with large progenynumbers and fast-generation time has allowed scientists todefine the molecular mechanisms of gene function at a levelof resolution and rapid pace not achievable with other animalmodels. We have selected several areas to cover in this issue,including recent advances in the understanding of the mech-anisms controlling organ regeneration, neurodegeneration,cancer, and metabolic diseases.

Many neurodegenerative diseases are caused by differ-ent defects in posttranslational modification or build-up ofaberrant proteins. We have included two reviews and threestudies which report and discuss the use of Drosophila tomodel neurodegenerative diseases and possible therapeu-tic approaches. D. Denton and L. O’Keefe highlight howautophagy and defects in lysosome-mediated degradativepathways contribute to the etiology of Alzheimer's Diseaseand how this can be modelled using Drosophila. M. D.Molto and J. V. Llorens focus on how Drosophila modelshave gained new insights into the involvement of lipidmetabolism and glial cells in Friedreich's ataxia, caused by adeficit in the mitochondrial protein Frataxin. U. Mayor et al.present how the ubiquitination state of neural proteins andubiquitin carriers can play important roles during neuronaldevelopment and in disease setting, and M. Jafari et al. showhow some natural compounds may help contrast a numberof neurodegenerative traits in Huntington’s and Alzheimer’sdiseases.

Cancer is driven by complex genetic and cellular mech-anisms. The use of Drosophila as a model to study cancerhas proven essential to elucidate several mechanisms that arefundamental to cancer development. Here, we have includedthree reviews on how Drosophila is utilised to dissect themechanisms underlying tumourigenesis and cancer progres-sion. L.-A. Baena-Lopez et al. present an overview on thefunction of caspases, independent of their traditional role incell death, in contexts such as proliferation, differentiation,and migration, all of fundamental importance in tumouri-genesis. J. B. Cordero et al. use the Drosophila midgut tointerrogate cell autonomous, niche-derived signals which

HindawiBioMed Research InternationalVolume 2018, Article ID 7214974, 2 pageshttps://doi.org/10.1155/2018/7214974

2 BioMed Research International

coordinately regulate stem cell proliferation in response totumourigenesis. Finally, H. E. Richardson and M. Portelagive a comprehensive update on cooperative oncogenesis,where multiple mutations/genetic alterations cooperate todrive tumourigenesis, which can be beautifully recapitulatedin Drosophila.

Regeneration is an amazing ability displayed in differentforms by most metazoans, including humans, which allowsorganisms to repair or totally replace damaged organs. Giventhe potential therapeutic applications of understanding themechanisms that control this capacity, in recent years a lotof effort has been focused on analysing the genetic andmolecular basis of this intriguing phenomenon. In this issue,A. Baonza and S. Ahmed-de-Prado review the contributionof Drosophila to identify the signalling networks involvedin regulating the variety of cellular responses required forregeneration.

C. Gamberi et al. and M. Mink et al. present novelDrosophila models of human kidney disease and explainhow studies using the malpighian tubules can shed lighton cyst formation in kidney disease and the importance ofsome basement membrane components in the context ofnephropathy. Finally, J. R. Riesgo-Escovar et al. present anoverview on howDrosophila is being increasingly appreciatedas a model for human metabolic diseases. Although thephysiology of insects is different from that of mammals, thegenes and signalling pathways involved in growth controlare highly conserved. Drosophila with diabetic and obesephenotypes can be generated by manipulations of pathwaysthat cause parallel clinical manifestations in humans, furthervalidating Drosophila as a model for studying human physi-ology and metabolism. In this sense, P. Bellosta et al. proposea Drosophila model of Adipose Tissue Macrophage (ATM)infiltration to study the protective role of anthocyanins inchronic tissue inflammation and related metabolic diseases.

Taken together, these reviews and studies highlight thecontinuous innovation in the use of Drosophila for the studyof disease mechanisms, which has been revealing manyinsights in regard to human disease onset, phenotypes, andprogression.

Louise ChengAntonio BaonzaDaniela Grifoni

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