Because of their well-studied genome and its rapid life cycle, the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is one of the most commonly used model in genetic research. In an article published on the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published this week, researchers from the Duke University were able to show that a human gene implicated in Dilated cardiomyopathy produces the same condition in fruitflies when inserted into their genomes. Their results were based on a new visualization technique, a technology known as optical coherence tomography (OCT), which enabled the scientists to obtain detailed images of the beating heart of an adult, unanesthetized fly.

According to the paper's senior author, Howard Rockman, M.D., these results may have practical implications in drug development:

If a candidate human gene leads to the same physiological effects in the fly as it does in humans, researchers can then not only test different compounds or drugs, but do so much quicker than in other mammal models of disease.

"These findings have the potential to change the way we do genetic screening to identify candidate disease-causing genes," Rockman continued. "Never before have we been able to actually visualize in the fruit fly the actual physiologic changes caused by dilated cardiomyopathy."

First author Matthew J. Wolf, M.D., Ph.D. said that, in an effort to identify or correlate abnormal heart functioning with a specific gene mutation, they are now screening the entire fruit fly genome gene by gene, and determining whether the removal of the gene or a mutated version results in heart failure in the fly.

Source: DukeMedNews via Fresh Biotech.