Probing Prostate Cancer

Thanks in part to the ease of manipulating their genes fruit flies are a nifty organism to study human disease – even prostate cancer. While fruit flies don’t have a prostate, they have something similar called accessory glands. Most prostate cancer studies in these flies have been done in the developing larvae. However, as it’s an adult human disease, researchers looked to model prostate cancer in adult flies. The team genetically triggered cancer in adult accessory glands (pictured). They found tissue changes similar to those seen in human prostate cancer cells after chemotherapy — changes linked to cancer cell chemo-resistance. Adult fruit fly accessory glands, therefore, provide a useful model for investigating how prostate cancer progresses.

Image created using Leica Microsystems microscopy

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image from work by S. Jaimian Church and colleagues
• Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, April 2025