Genetic dissection of dementia

项目摘要 本研究的主要目的是确定具有功能意义的遗传危险因素， 在模式生物黑腹果蝇（Drosophila melanogaster）中的痴呆症。老年痴呆症的关键是年龄- 使执行功能（例如抑制性控制）受损的依赖性神经变性， 记忆大多数痴呆症研究都集中在记忆丧失上，这是痴呆症的一个突出症状。 AD -最常见的痴呆类型。虽然动物模型提供了重要的见解， 记忆丧失的机制，他们的效用痴呆症基因发现是有限的，因为研究 记忆丧失是费时费力的。执行缺陷是早期的主要症状 阶段AD和相关的痴呆症，但在很大程度上研究不足。我们通过以下方式克服这些局限性： 研究抑制控制缺陷作为痴呆症的内表型，以发现痴呆症 基因，这是创新的。我们的方法是对遗传位点进行无偏筛选 以年龄依赖性方式引起抑制控制功能障碍，有或没有非- 遗传风险因素。在这个建议中，我们还将测试的假设，遗传和非- 遗传风险因素的相互作用对痴呆症的影响比单独的遗传因素更大。 果蝇是易于处理的学生研究培训和教育，因为它很容易处理，允许 易于应用最先进的工具和方法，并且具有成本效益和时间效益。有 UTEP目前没有其他关于痴呆症的生物学研究。痴呆症患病率是 在西班牙裔美国人中不成比例地高于白色美国人，因此这项研究不仅将促进 与我们的学生和社区相关的研究，但也增加了西班牙裔的代表性 在神经科学研究中的比例现在不成比例的低。

Project Abstract The major goal of this research is to identify the genetic risk factors with functional significance to dementia in the model organism Drosophila melanogaster. The key aspect of dementia is age- dependent neurodegeneration that cripples executive functions (e.g. inhibitory control) and memory. Most dementia studies have focused on memory loss, which is a prominent symptom of AD - the most common dementia type. While animal models have provided important insights into the mechanism for memory loss, their utility for dementia gene discovery is limited since the study of memory loss is time-consuming and laborious. Executive deficits are major symptoms in early stage AD and related dementias yet largely understudied. We overcome these limitations by studying inhibitory control deficit as a dementia endophenotype for the discovery of dementia genes, which is innovative. Our approach is to conduct an unbiased screen for the genetic loci causing dysfunctional inhibitory control in an age-dependent manner, with or without the non- genetic risk factors. In this proposal we will also test the hypothesis that the genetic and non- genetic risk factor interaction has a greater effect on dementia than a genetic factor alone. Drosophila is tractable for student research training and education as it is easy to handle, allows to readily apply state-of-the-art tools and approaches, and is cost-and time-effective. There is currently no other biological research on dementia at UTEP. Dementia prevalence is disproportionately higher in Hispanics than white Americans thus this study will not only promote research relevant to our students and community but also increase the representation of Hispanics in neuroscience research that is disproportionately low at present.