Chemical genetics and drug screening in Drosophila cancer models

Abstract

Drug candidates often fail in preclinical and clinical testing because of reasons of efficacy and/or safety. It would be time- and cost-efficient to have screening models that reduce the rate of such false positive candidates that appear promising at first but fail later. In this regard, it would be particularly useful to have a rapid and inexpensive whole animal model that can pre-select hits from high-throughput screens but before testing in costly rodent assays. Drosophila melanogaster has emerged as a potential whole animal model for drug screening. Of particular interest have been drugs that must act in the context of multi-cellularity such as those for neurological disorders and cancer. A recent review provides a comprehensive summary of drug screening in Drosophila, but with an emphasis on neurodegenerative disorders. Here, we review Drosophila screens in the literature aimed at cancer therapeutics.