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Modelling neurodegeneration in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: why cook with baker's yeast?

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 11, pages 436–449 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

In ageing populations, neurodegenerative diseases increase in prevalence, exacting an enormous toll on individuals and their communities. Multiple complementary experimental approaches are needed to elucidate the mechanisms underlying these complex diseases and to develop novel therapeutics. Here, we describe why the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has a unique role in the neurodegeneration armamentarium. As the best-understood and most readily analysed eukaryotic organism, S. cerevisiae is delivering mechanistic insights into cell-autonomous mechanisms of neurodegeneration at an interactome-wide scale.

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Figure 1: Conserved cellular biology in yeast.
Figure 2: Creating, characterizing and screening a yeast model of neurodegenerative disease.

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Acknowledgements

We thank members of the Lindquist laboratory for their insightful comments on the manuscript, and particularly E. Nabieva for her assistance in the preparation of Table 2. S.L. is an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). This work was supported by an HHMI Collaborative Innovation Award, US National Institutes of Health Udall program grant NS038372, and the Whitehead Institute Regenerative Biology Initiative.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vikram Khurana is at the Departments of Neurology, Brigham and Women's and Massachusetts General Hospitals, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; and at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.,

    Vikram Khurana

  2. and at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.,

    Vikram Khurana

  3. USA; the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Susan Lindquist is at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA; and is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.,

    Susan Lindquist

  4. the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA,

    Susan Lindquist

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Correspondence to Susan Lindquist.

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Susan Lindquist is a co-founder of, a former member of the Board of Directors of and has received consulting fees from FoldRx Pharmaceuticals, a company that investigates drugs for treating protein-folding diseases. She is an inventor of patents and patent applications that have been licensed to FoldRx. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Johnson & Johnson.

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Khurana, V., Lindquist, S. Modelling neurodegeneration in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: why cook with baker's yeast?. Nat Rev Neurosci 11, 436–449 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2809

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