Knockdown of Hsc70-5/mortalin induces loss of synaptic mitochondria in a Drosophila Parkinson's disease model.

ABSTRACT: Mortalin is an essential component of the molecular machinery that imports nuclear-encoded proteins into mitochondria, assists in their folding, and protects against damage upon accumulation of dysfunctional, unfolded proteins in aging mitochondria. Mortalin dysfunction associated with Parkinson's disease (PD) increases the vulnerability of cultured cells to proteolytic stress and leads to changes in mitochondrial function and morphology. To date, Drosophila melanogaster has been successfully used to investigate pathogenesis following the loss of several other PD-associated genes. We generated the first loss-of-Hsc70-5/mortalin-function Drosophila model. The reduction of Mortalin expression recapitulates some of the defects observed in the existing Drosophila PD-models, which include reduc

SUBMITTER: Zhu JY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3875477 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature