Studying tauopathies in Drosophila: A fruitful model.

Tauopathies are a group of neurodegenerative disorders that include hereditary frontotemporal dementias (FTDs) such as FTD with parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17 (FTDP-17), as well as sporadic variants of FTDs like progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), corticobasal degeneration (CBD), and Pick's disease. These diverse diseases all have in common the presence of abnormally phosphorylated tau aggregates. In this review, we will summarize key features of transgenic Drosophila models of tauopathies and a number of insights into disease mechanisms as well as therapeutic implications gained from the fruit fly models.