More than 40 Drosophila melanogaster genes have been ... loss of the mouse orthologue in the brain has been shown to cause neurodegeneration, and loss-of-function mutations in the human orthologue ...

2003 ). For example, when expressed in the Drosophila brain, Tau protein—which forms neurofibrillary tangle pathology in AD—causes adult onset, progressive neurodegeneration, truncated lifespan and ...