Caenorhabditis elegans in Parkinson’s Disease Drug Discovery: Addressing an Unmet Medical Need

Degeneration of Dopamine neurons in response to a PD-associated protein. Ectopic expression of the human α-synuclein A53T isoform causes C. elegans Dopamine neurons to degenerate. The anterior (see Head; Figure 2) of the adult wild-type worm (upper panel) shows normal compliment of Dopamine neurons, whereas the A53T α-synuclein–expressing animal (lower panel) shows loss of cell bodies and processes. Only four of the six neurons are clearly visible in the wild-type worm because of the focal plane. Only two neuronal cell bodies (the ADE pair; see Figure 2) and part of the processes are present. Reproduced with permission from (58).