Katie Haynes | 2026 I.S. Symposium
Name: Katie Haynes
Title: Examining the relationship between Nab2 overexpression and Tau abundance in a D. melanogaster neurodegenerative model
Major: Neuroscience
Minor: Music
Advisor: Seth Kelly
Tens of millions of people suffer from neurodegenerative disorders, yet the development of effective treatments has been extremely limited. Neurodegeneration is characterized by the progressive deterioration of the nervous system. One class of neurodegenerative disease, called Tauopathies, encompasses many individual disorders like Alzheimer鈥檚 Disease and is characterized by the abnormal aggregation of the Tau protein. Recently, genetic modifiers of Tau pathology have been explored as potential targets for improving our understanding and treatment of tauopathies. One of these genetic modifiers is the human protein ZC3H14 which has been shown to influence the presence of abnormal Tau aggregates in rodent models. To better understand the protein ZC3H14 and its potential to modify Tau pathology, the current study modeled tauopathy in the organism Drosophila melanogaster, commonly known as the fruit fly. We investigated whether overexpression of the Drosophila version of ZC3H14, Nab2, alters Tau abundance in female fly brains. Additionally, this study aimed to examine whether different dosages of Nab2 distinctly alter Tau abundance in fly brains. The results of this study indicated that the overexpression of Nab2 has no significant effect on Tau expression in Drosophila. Although no significance was found, there was a non-significant trend where flies overexpressing both Tau and Nab2 contained less Tau than flies only overexpressing Tau. Unfortunately, experimental design flaws hindered this study鈥檚 ability to assess if unique dosages of Nab2 differently influence Tau presence in Drosophila. Therefore, additional research is necessary to elucidate the relationship between Nab2 overexpression and Tau abundance in Drosophila.
Posted in Symposium 2026 on May 1, 2026.
