Modeling spinal muscular atrophy in Drosophila.

Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), a recessive hereditary neurodegenerative disease in humans, has been linked to mutations in the survival motor neuron (SMN) gene. SMA patients display early onset lethality coupled with motor neuron loss and skeletal muscle atrophy. We used Drosophila, which encodes a single SMN ortholog, survival motor neuron (Smn), to model SMA, since reduction of Smn function leads to defects that mimic the SMA pathology in humans.

Cytosolic tail sequences and subunit interactions are critical for synaptic localization of glutamate receptors.

AMPA-type glutamate receptors mediate excitatory synaptic transmission in the nervous system. The receptor subunit composition and subcellular localization play an important role in regulating synaptic strength. GLR-1 and GLR-2 are the Caenorhabditis elegans subunits most closely related to the mammalian AMPA-type receptors.

Distinct LIN-10 domains are required for its neuronal function, its epithelial function, and its synaptic localization.

alpha-Amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid (AMPA)-type glutamate receptors (AMPARs) mediate excitatory neurotransmission at neuronal synapses, and their regulated localization plays a role in synaptic plasticity. In Caenorhabditis elegans, the PDZ and PTB domain-containing protein LIN-10 is required both for the synaptic localization of the AMPAR subunit GLR-1 and for vulval fate induction in epithelia. Here, we examine the role that different LIN-10 domains play in GLR-1 localization.