Testing the effects of Yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) in a Drosophila model of Parkinson?s disease

PEDRO BALLESTERO; MARCELA SCHENK; SEBASTÍAN ROMANO ; JUAN FERRARIO; OSCAR GERSHANIK; NARA MURARO; MARIANA FERRARIO; SANDRA GUERRERO

Villa Carlos Paz, Córdoba

Congreso; XXXIV Congreso Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias; 2019

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second worldwide neurodegenerative disorder in prevalence. Its origin is unknown, but its pathophysiological characteristic is the progressive degeneration of dopamine-releasing neurons (nDA) of the Substantia nigra pars compacta. Recently, an epidemiological study conducted in Argentina revealed that the consumption of yerba mate (YM) has an inverse association with the risk of developing PD (Gatto, 2015). Furthermore, we have found that YM extract induces a strong neuroprotective effect on dopaminergic neurons in vitro (Bernardi, 2019). Given these promising evidences, we aimed to test the potential neuroprotective effect of YM in an in vivo model of PD. We have chosen a model where the WT human alpha synuclein is over-expressed panneuronally in Drosophila melanogaster, which induces several motor deficits and has been widely used to study PD. To reach our goal, we have set up the administration of YM to flies, characterized the aSyn model in our hands and produced preliminary behavioral and molecular data. In this poster we will show the feeding method, as well as preliminary results that suggest that YM administration produces an improvement of motor coordination in PD flies. Even if our preliminary results are encouraging, further work is still necessary to demonstrate a neuroprotective role of YM in vivo.