Objective: To study the therapeutic potential of the medicinal herb Pueraria tuberosa on Drosophila model of Friedreich’s ataxia.

Background: Reduced levels of the mitochondrial protein frataxin leads to the multi pathway defects ultimately leading to the complex and covert mechanism of the Friedreich’s ataxia. Due to multifactorial nature of the ataxia, therapies developed has shown very limited success rate. We are trying to utilize the multi-targeting abilities of the herb Pueraria tuberosa (PT) for improving the FRDA pathogenicity.

Method: For modelling the FRDA in Drosophila, we procured the Drosophila model from Bloomington stock centre (BDSC stock no 67161) with the EMS-induced S136R point mutation in drosophila frataxin (fh) which leads to the reduced amount of the frataxin mimicking the FRDA. We checked the reduction in the aconitase activity though RT PCR and analysed the effects on locomotion through crawling in third instar larvae of Drosophila FRDA model and compared with wild type. Medicinal herb Pueraria tuberosa was collected from sayadri hills region in Maharashtra and extract was prepared. Extract was mixed in fly food in the 2.5 mg/ml and 5 mg/ml concentration and larvae were fed from first instar till the experiments were performed at third instar larvae. Third instar larvae were collected and used for crawling assay and RNA isolation for quantitative RT PCR.

Results: In S136R point mutation model of the FRDA, frataxin reduction results in 65% larval lethality with only 35% larvae survived till pupariation followed by 100% pupal lethality therefore we performed the locomotion analysis at third instar larvae. Pueraria tuberosa treatment improved the locomotion of the larvae from 2.1 cm/min to 2.35 cm/min of the FRDA diseased larvae and as a biochemical evidence, PT treatment also increased the mRNA levels by two fold.

Conclusion: PT treatment improves the locomotion defects and increases the aconitase activity in the Drosophila FRDA model suggesting that the PT has multi-pathway-targeting potential and beneficial effects on the FRDA pathophysiology.

PT Treatment rescues the locomotion defect

PT treatment increases the Aconitase levels

« Back to 2026 International Congress

MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/pueraria-tuberosa-improves-the-locomotion-defects-in-drosophila-model-of-frda/