Applications of Immunomagnetic Reduction Technology as a Biosensor in Therapeutic Evaluation of Chinese Herbal Medicine in Tauopathy Alleviation of an AD Drosophila Model

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. The most convincing biomarkers in the blood for AD are currently β-amyloid (Aβ) and Tau protein because amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles are pathological hallmarks in the brains of patients with AD. The development of assay technologies in diagnosing early-stage AD is very important. The study of human AD subjects is hindered by ethical and technical limitations. Thus, many studies have therefore turned to AD animal models, such as Drosophila melanogaster, to explore AD pathology. However, AD biomarkers such as Aβ and p-Tau protein in Drosophila melanogaster occur at extremely low levels and are difficult to detect precisely. In this study, we applied the immunomagnetic reduction (IMR) technology of nanoparticles for the detection of p-Tau expressions in hTau^R406W flies, an AD Drosophila model. Furthermore, we used IMR technology as a biosensor in the therapeutic evaluation of Chinese herbal medicines in hTau^R406W flies with Tau-induced toxicity. To uncover the pathogenic pathway and identify therapeutic interventions of Chinese herbal medicines in Tau-induced toxicity, we modeled tauopathy in the notum of hTau^R406W flies. Our IMR data showed that the selected Chinese herbal medicines can significantly reduce p-Tau expressions in hTau^R406W flies. Using evidence of notal bristle quantification and Western blotting analysis, we confirmed the validity of the IMR data. Thus, we suggest that IMR can serve as a new tool for measuring tauopathy and therapeutic evaluation of Chinese herbal medicine in an AD Drosophila model.