Therefore, we herein attempted to establish a new Drosophila model for these purposes by knocking down the Drosophila homolog of human UCHL1 (dUCH) in the DA neuron system of fly brain, and then evaluating the effects of this knockdown on PD-related symptoms including tissue morphology, locomotor behaviors, dopamine production, DA neuron integrity, and the progression of DA neuron degeneration. Here, UCHL1 is linked to Parkinson disease.