Towards Understanding Neurodegenerative Diseases: Insights from .

The elevated occurrence of debilitating neurodegenerative disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Huntington's disease (HD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD) and Machado-Joseph disease (MJD), demands urgent disease-modifying therapeutics. Owing to the evolutionarily conserved molecular signalling pathways with mammalian species and facile genetic manipulation, the nematode () emerges as a powerful and manipulative model system for mechanistic insights into neurodegenerative diseases. Herein, we review several representative models established for five common neurodegenerative diseases, which closely simulate disease phenotypes specifically in the gain-of-function aspect. We exemplify applications of high-throughput genetic and drug screenings to illustrate the potential of to probe novel therapeutic targets. This review highlights the utility of as a comprehensive and versatile platform for the dissection of neurodegenerative diseases at the molecular level.