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The Functional Assessment of LRRK2 in Caenorhabditis elegans Mechanosensory Neurons

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Experimental Models of Parkinson’s Disease

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 2322))

Abstract

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is a powerful model organism to systematically analyze the functions of genes of interest in vivo. Especially, C. elegans nervous system is suitable for morphological and functional analyses of neuronal genes due to its optical transparency of the body and the well-established anatomy including neural connections. The C. elegans ortholog of Parkinson’s disease-associated gene LRRK2, named lrk-1, has been shown to play a role in the regulation of axonal morphology in a subset of neurons. Here I describe the detailed methodologies for the assessment of LRK-1/LRRK2 function as well as the analysis of genetic interaction involving lrk-1/LRRK2 by performing live imaging of C. elegans mechanosenrory neurons.

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Acknowledgments

I thank Drs. Asa Abeliovich, Takeshi Iwatsubo and their colleagues for their support during the establishment of the described methods. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant number 19K07816.

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Correspondence to Tomoki Kuwahara .

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Kuwahara, T. (2021). The Functional Assessment of LRRK2 in Caenorhabditis elegans Mechanosensory Neurons. In: Imai, Y. (eds) Experimental Models of Parkinson’s Disease. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2322. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1495-2_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1495-2_17

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  • Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-1494-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-1495-2

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