Expression of genes related to Parkinson’s disease after paraquat treatment in Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

This study was designed to determine the minimum effective concentration of paraquat that modulated the expression of PKD-related genes in Drosophila. We first studied the viability of Drosophila and then tested the expression of the PKD-related genes— Parkin, UCH, and tau—in various concentrations of paraquat in the water sucked by Drosophila. The lowest effective concentration of paraquat was approximately 20 μM and the gene expression was induced at paraquat doses between 20 mM and 20 μM. Parkin and tau expression was inhibited, while that of UCH was significantly increased. Next, we examined the expression of the Parkin and UCH genes in the neurons of SOD-reduced mutants under oxidative stress conditions and found that Parkin was up regulated, while UCH was down regulated. We also found that the expression of Parkin was regulated by JNK. This study revealed that paraquat affects the expression of PKD-related genes via oxidative stress. In conclusion, our results showed that paraquat in the water sucked by Drosophila altered the gene expression at a minimum concentration of 20 μM, and that it not only promoted but also inhibited PKD-related gene expression via signal transduction mediated by oxidative stress. In order to confirm whether paraquat is a causal factor of PKD, more balanced and in-depth tests seem to be done looking into multiple aspects.