Ronidazole

Teeters G, et al. Developmental Biology, 2025, 520, 31-40.

Ronidazole is a nitroimidazole prodrug employed in a novel method for genetically inducing controlled cell death in Drosophila. This method utilizes the E. coli enzyme Nitroreductase (NTR), which, upon expression in target cells, converts Ronidazole into a toxic compound that induces DNA damage and cell death. The Ronidazole-NTR system offers precise spatiotemporal control of cell ablation, as NTR expression is spatially regulated through the GAL4/UAS system, while cell death is temporally controlled by Ronidazole supplementation in the diet. This system enables the inducible death of various cell types, including epithelial cells, neurons, and glia, and is reversible by removing Ronidazole from the diet. The method is temperature-independent, addressing limitations of temperature-sensitive genetic ablation techniques. Additionally, the Ronidazole-NTR system requires only two transgenes-GAL4 driver and UAS-NTR-facilitating large-scale screens for genetic studies.