Greta Elovsson

The Amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide plays a central role in Alzheimer’s disease because of its high propensity to aggregate, causing damage to neuronal cells in the brain. The fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) is extensively used as an animal model in search of therapeutic candidates and effective disease-modifying treatments. In these studies, the toxic Aβ peptide is expressed and produced in the fly brain, manifesting in phenotypes such as decreased survival and activity, and the presence of aggregates. However, since drug molecules often are administrated orally to the fly there is a risk that they fail to reach the brain, due to their inability to pass the brain barrier. Our solution is therefore to express Aβ in the gut instead of the brain, which increases the probability that the drug molecules will reach the target site. Taken together, this gut based Aβ expressing fly model can be used to study the mechanism behind Aβ toxicity and to identify different substances that can modify Aβ toxicity.