CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Although Parkinson Disease (PD) is characterized by motor disorders, it has been described that some of these patients exhibit cardiac perturbations. However, the relationship between the pathophysiology of PD and cardiovascular complications remains unclear.This work aims to evaluate the survival, motor capacity, and cardiac performance in a model of parkinsonism in Drosophila melanogaster that harbors a loss of function microdeletion in the DJ-1-encoding gene. The absence of DJ-1 induces early-onset PD in humans.Canton-S flies (control) and parkinsonism model flies (park) were used. We carried out survival analysis and motor ability assessment by climbing tests. Heterozygous individuals of control and Park flies expressing the reporter protein GFP in cardiac and pericardial cells(GFP flies) were used for heart contractility assessments by confocal microscopy. Heart rate and arrhythmicity index (AI) were evaluated in 8 and 40 days-old flies. Survival curves were obtained using the Kaplan/Meier method and analyzed using the log-rank (Mantel-Cox) test. Student´s t-test (two-tailed) was utilized for comparison between two groups and ANOVA followed by post hoc Tukey test was utilized for comparison among three or more groups.The lifespan of control and park flies did not differ significantly. However, the climbing ability of the park flies decreased with age, especially after day 25. Heart rate in 8 days-old park flies was lower than in aged-matched control flies. Age-dependent reduction in heart ratewas very similar in both groups. The AI only increased in 40-day park individuals. The described alterations in these parameters do not seem to be associated with alterations in the activity of proteins involved in intracellular calcium handling, e.g. SERCA and NCX.Conclusions: individuals with parkinsonism show decreased motor capacity and manifest changes in heart rate and increased arrhythmogenesis