Publications by Brian Donal McCabe

Trio preserves motor synapses and prolongs motor ability during aging

Evelyne Ruchti, Greta Limoni, Brian Donal McCabe, Wei Jiao, Soumya Banerjee, Samuel William Vernon

The decline of motor ability is a hallmark feature of aging and is accompanied by degeneration of motor synaptic terminals. Consistent with this, Drosophila motor synapses undergo characteristic age -dependent structural fragmentation co -incident with dim ...

Cell Press2024

Chromosome-level organization of the regulatory genome in the Drosophila nervous system

Christian Iseli, Nicolas Jean Philippe Guex, Julien Dorier, Marion Leleu, Brian Donal McCabe, Rebecca Carolyn Smith

Previous studies have identified topologically associating domains (TADs) as basic units of genome organization. We present evidence of a previously unreported level of genome folding, where distant TAD pairs, megabases apart, interact to form meta-domains ...

2023

A conditional glutamatergic synaptic vesicle marker for Drosophila

Evelyne Ruchti, Brian Donal McCabe

Glutamate is a principal neurotransmitter used extensively by the nervous systems of all vertebrate and invertebrate animals. It is primarily an excitatory neurotransmitter that has been implicated in nervous system development, as well as a myriad of brai ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC2022

The matricellular protein Drosophila Cellular Communication Network Factor is required for synaptic transmission and female fertility

Evelyne Ruchti, Brian Donal McCabe

Within the extracellular matrix, matricellular proteins are dynamically expressed nonstructural proteins that interact with cell surface receptors, growth factors, and proteases, as well as with structural matrix proteins. The cellular communication networ ...

Genetics Society America2022

Intact Drosophila central nervous system cellular quantitation reveals sexual dimorphism

Kathryn Hess Bellwald, Evelyne Ruchti, Ying Shi, Brian Donal McCabe, Wei Jiao, Soumya Banerjee, Gard Spreemann, Samuel William Vernon

Establishing with precision the quantity and identity of the cell types of the brain is a prerequisite for a detailed compendium of gene and protein expression in the central nervous system (CNS). Currently, however, strict quantitation of cell numbers has ...

eLIFE SCIENCES PUBL LTD2022

Retromer deficiency in Tauopathy models enhances the truncation and toxicity of Tau

Graham Knott, Evelyne Ruchti, Catherine Maclachlan, Greta Limoni, Brian Donal McCabe, Wei Jiao

Alteration of the levels, localization or post-translational processing of the microtubule associated protein Tau is associated with many neurodegenerative disorders. Here we develop adult-onset models for human Tau (hTau) toxicity in Drosophila that enabl ...

Nature Portfolio2022

A conditional GABAergic synaptic vesicle marker for Drosophila

Brian Donal McCabe

Background: Throughout the animal kingdom, GABA is the principal inhibitory neurotransmitter of the nervous system. It is essential for maintaining the homeostatic balance between excitation and inhibition required for the brain to operate normally. Identi ...

2022

Miniature neurotransmission is required to maintain Drosophila synaptic structures during ageing

Olivier Burri, Evelyne Ruchti, Brian Donal McCabe, Wei Jiao, Soumya Banerjee, Samuel William Vernon

The decline of neuronal synapses is an established feature of ageing accompanied by the diminishment of neuronal function, and in the motor system at least, a reduction of behavioural capacity. Here, we have investigated Drosophila motor neuron synaptic te ...

Nature Research2021

The Links between ALS and NF-κB

Bernard Schneider, Brian Donal McCabe, Emma Charlotta Källstig

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease wherein motor neu-ron degeneration leads to muscle weakness, progressive paralysis, and death within 3–5 years ofdiagnosis. Currently, the cause of ALS is unknown but, as with several neuro ...

2021

Supplemental Data - Intact Drosophila Whole Brain Cellular Quantitation reveals Sexual Dimorphism

Brian Donal McCabe, Wei Jiao

Supplemental Figures, Datasets and Movies supporting the manuscript - Intact Drosophila Whole Brain Cellular Quantitation reveals Sexual Dimorphism. Wei Jiao, Gard Spreemann, Evelyne Ruchti, Soumya Banerjee, Ying Shi, R. Steven Stowers, Ka ...

Zenodo2021

Vesicular glutamate transporter modulates sex differences in dopamine neuron vulnerability to age-related neurodegeneration

Brian Donal McCabe

Age is the greatest risk factor for Parkinson's disease (PD) which causes progressive loss of dopamine (DA) neurons, with males at greater risk than females. Intriguingly, some DA neurons are more resilient to degeneration than others. Increasing evidence ...

2021

Octopamine neuron dependent aggression requires dVGLUT from dual-transmitting neurons

Brian Donal McCabe

Neuromodulators such as monoamines are often expressed in neurons that also release at least one fast-acting neurotransmitter. The release of a combination of transmitters provides both "classical" and "modulatory" signals that could produce diverse and/or ...

2020

Lack of effect on ambulation of dalfampridine-ER (4-AP) treatment in adult SMA patients

Brian Donal McCabe

SMA is a genetically determined motor system disorder that results in muscle weakness, selective motor neuron death, muscle atrophy, and impaired functional mobility. In SMA model systems, long-term treatment with 4-aminopyridine (4-AP) has been shown to i ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2020

Synaptic proximity enables NMDAR signalling to promote brain metastasis

Graham Knott, Douglas Hanahan, Mohammad Sadegh Saghafinia, Iacovos Michael, Qiqun Zeng, Brian Donal McCabe, Wei Jiao, Giovanni Ciriello, Peng Zhang, Inti Zlobec

Metastasis-the disseminated growth of tumours in distant organs-underlies cancer mortality. Breast-to-brain metastasis (B2BM) is a common and disruptive form of cancer and is prevalent in the aggressive basal-like subtype, but is also found at varying freq ...

2019

WDR79/TCAB1 plays a conserved role in the control of locomotion and ameliorates phenotypic defects in SMA models

Brian Donal McCabe

SMN (Survival Motor Neuron) deficiency is the predominant cause of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a severe neurodegenerative disorder that can lead to progressive paralysis and death. Although SMN is required in every cell for proper RNA metabolism, the re ...

Academic Press Inc Elsevier Science2017

Neuronal Depolarization Drives Increased Dopamine Synaptic Vesicle Loading via VGLUT

Brian Donal McCabe

The ability of presynaptic dopamine terminals to tune neurotransmitter release to meet the demands of neuronal activity is critical to neurotransmission. Although vesicle content has been assumed to be static, in vitro data increasingly suggest that cell a ...

Cell Press2017