Drosophila Glia

LinFang Wang, ShanghaiTech University. Honglei Wang, ShanghaiTech University. Margaret S. Ho received her B.A. in Molecular and Cellular Biology & Biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, CA, and her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Harvard University. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Academica Sinica Institute of Molecular Biology in Taiwan and then joined the faculty of Tongji University School of Medicine in Shanghai, China. In 2017, Margaret became Associate Professor and PI at ShanghaiTech School of Life Sciences and Technology, where the Ho lab uses Drosophila as a model system to investigate the mechanisms of nervous system development and function, particularly in glial cells. Bearing resemblance in many ways to mammalian glia, Drosophila glia are comprised of a variety of morphological classes and exhibit similar functions to their mammalian counterparts. Glial cells are the most abundant cell types in the nervous system, and participate in virtually all aspects of brain function. Dysfunction in glial cells causes serious and significant pathology that leads to multiple brain diseases. Previous work from the Ho laboratory elucidated a distinct pathway, ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation, that regulates embryonic glial cell development. Extending from this work, the Ho lab is now interested in topics including 1. Neuronalglia interaction and its physiological relevance in neuronal development and synaptic function, and 2. Glial cell function in behavior, and its implications for neurodegenerative diseases. Professor Alexei Verkhratsky, MD, PhD, D.Sc, is an internationally recognised scholar in the field of cellular neurophysiology. His research is concentrated on the mechanisms of inter- and intracellular signalling in the CNS, being especially focused on two main types of neural cells, neurones and neuroglia. He made important contributions to understanding the chemical and electrical transmission in reciprocal neuronal-glial communications and on the role of intracellular Ca2 signals in the integrative processes in the nervous system. Many of A. Verkhratsky's studies are dedicated to investigations of cellular mechanisms of neurodegeneration. In recent years he studies the glial pathology in Alzheimer disease. He authored a pioneering hypothesis of astroglial atrophy as a mechanism of neurodegeneration. Vladimir Parpura, M.D., Ph.D., holds both a medical degree, awarded from the University of Zagreb in Croatia in 1989, and a doctorate in Neuroscience and Zoology from Iowa State University in 1993. He has held faculty appointments at the Department of Zoology and Genetics, Iowa State University, and the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, University of California Riverside. He is presently a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Neurobiology, University of Alabama Birmingham, as well as a tenured Full Professor in the Department of Biotechnology, University of Rijeka, Croatia. He was elected as a Member of Academia Europaea (MEA) in 2012. His current research includes: i) studying the modulation of calcium-dependent glutamate release from astrocytes in health and disease; ii) visualization of vesicular/receptor trafficking; iii) examination of the nature and energetics of interactions between exocytotic proteins using single molecule detection approaches; iv) development of scaffolds and dispersible materials, most notably modified carbon nanotubes, which can be used in repair after brain injury and v) bio-mimetic micro-robotics. He has been interfacing neuroscience with nanoscience/nanotechnology, synthetic biology and biomedical engineering.

Introduction
Drosophila Glia
Classification and Developmental Origins
Drosophila Glial Function
Glia Drosophila Models of Neurological Disorders
Acknowledgments
References
Author Biography