neprilysins control insulin signaling and food intake via cleavage of regulatory peptides.

Insulin and IGF signaling are critical to numerous developmental and physiological processes, with perturbations being pathognomonic of various diseases, including diabetes. Although the functional roles of the respective signaling pathways have been extensively studied, the control of insulin production and release is only partially understood. Herein, we show that in expression of insulin-like peptides is regulated by neprilysin activity.

The bHLH Transcription Factor Hand Regulates the Expression of Genes Critical to Heart and Muscle Function in Drosophila melanogaster.

Hand proteins belong to the highly conserved family of basic Helix-Loop-Helix transcription factors and are critical to distinct developmental processes, including cardiogenesis and neurogenesis in vertebrates. In Drosophila melanogaster a single orthologous hand gene is expressed with absence of the respective protein causing semilethality during early larval instars. Surviving adult animals suffer from shortened lifespan associated with a disorganized myofibrillar structure being apparent in the dorsal vessel, the wing hearts and in midgut tissue.