Drosophila melanogaster: A Robust Tool to Study Candidate Drug against Epidemic and Pandemic Diseases

Abstract

Drosophila melanogaster is a widely used, dynamic model organism to study various pathogenic diseases observed ubiquitously in the human population. Drosophila, at present, is extensively used to conduct preclinical studies besides its counterpart rodents. The epidemic and pandemic diseases are discussed in this review to demonstrate Drosophila melanogaster as a key model. Epidemic and pandemic diseases are still claiming more than 5 million lives every year, and these diseases were well studied in flies. Currently there is no cure for the disease like HIV; the bacterial and fungal infections usually seen in HIV/AIDS patients could be demonstrated elaborately in Drosophila melanogaster. Diseases like myocardial infractions and cancer causing viral infection are long term effects of ART (antiretroviral therapy) that could be experimented in flies. Stable Drosophila S2 cell line, Transgenic flies, transfusion of bacteria and fungi could be implemented to study several infectious diseases and for vaccine development. The latest trends in understanding pathogenic diseases and its potential biochemical markers in flies are discussed in this review to utilize the fruit flies as a functional tool and to explore further it in drug development. The advantages and disadvantages of the fly as a model of infection are discussed along with the epidemiology and the cellular pathophysiology