Abstract
Mounting evidence indicates that the gut microbiota is linked to several physiological processes and disease development in mammals; however, the underlying mechanisms remained unexplored mostly due to the complexity of the mammalian gut microbiome. The fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is a valuable animal model for studying host-gut microbiota interactions in translational aspects. The availability of powerful genetic tools and resources in Drosophila allowed the scientists to unravel the mechanisms by which the gut microbes affect fitness, health, and behavior of their hosts. Drosophila models have been extensively used not only to study animal behaviors (i.e., courtship, aggression, sleep, and learning & memory), but also some human related neurodegenerative diseases (i.e., Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease) in the past. This review comprehensively summarizes the current understanding of the gut microbiota of Drosophila and its impact on fly behavior, physiology, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Highlights
The fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is an important experimental animal used in biomedical studies
At least three studies have reported that the gut microbiota does not affect courtship behavior in Drosophila [33,35,51]; it should be noted that each study used different wild-type flies and employed different methods to generate germ-free flies
Heys et al showed that the gut microbiota counteracts the male outbreeding strategy by altering the female sexual signaling, which leads to reduced sperm transfer from male flies [31]
Summary
The fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is an important experimental animal used in biomedical studies. The Drosophila model of AD developed by ectopically expressing human Aβ42 protein in the fly brain exhibits clinical symptoms associated with AD patients, such as age-dependent short-term memory impairment, learning defects, increased wakefulness, and sleep disruption [8,9]. Over the past 20 years, most of the gut microbiota studies employed rodent models to investigate the role of the microbiota−gut-brain axis. The versatile organism, Drosophila, is a powerful research model that allows scientists to investigate the mechanisms by which gut microbes affect the brain functions (Figure 1a,b).
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