Basic Science and Pathogenesis.

Background: Agora (https://agora.adknowledgeportal.org) is an openly available web resource developed to enable a broad spectrum of Alzheimer's disease (AD) researchers access to target-based evidence generated within the translational research portfolio of the National Institute on Aging (NIA).

dMyc is required for larval growth and endoreplication in Drosophila.

Members of the Myc family of proto-oncogenes have long been implicated in regulating proliferation, apoptosis and oncogenesis. Recently, transcriptional and biological studies have suggested a direct role for Myc in regulating growth. We have used dm(4), a new null allele of the Drosophila diminutive (dm) gene, which encodes dMyc on the X chromosome, to investigate a role for dMyc in larval endoreplicating tissues, where cellular growth and DNA replication occur in the absence of cell division.

Drosophila's insulin/PI3-kinase pathway coordinates cellular metabolism with nutritional conditions.

Studies in Drosophila have characterized insulin receptor/phosphoinositide 3-kinase (Inr/PI3K) signaling as a potent regulator of cell growth, but its function during development has remained uncertain. Here we show that inhibiting Inr/PI3K signaling phenocopies the cellular and organismal effects of starvation, whereas activating this pathway bypasses the nutritional requirement for cell growth, causing starvation sensitivity at the organismal level. Consistent with these findings, studies using a pleckstrin homology domain-green fluorescent protein (PH-GFP) fusion as an indicator for PI3K activity show that PI3K is regulated by the availability of dietary protein in vivo.