Glycolytically impaired Drosophila glial cells fuel neural metabolism via β-oxidation.

Neuronal function is highly energy demanding and thus requires efficient and constant metabolite delivery by glia. Drosophila glia are highly glycolytic and provide lactate to fuel neuronal metabolism. Flies are able to survive for several weeks in the absence of glial glycolysis.

Ecdysone regulates Drosophila wing disc size via a TORC1 dependent mechanism.

Most cells in a developing organ stop proliferating when the organ reaches a correct, final size. The underlying molecular mechanisms are not understood. We find that in Drosophila the hormone ecdysone controls wing disc size.

Drosophila ZDHHC8 palmitoylates scribble and Ras64B and controls growth and viability.

Palmitoylation is an important posttranslational modification regulating diverse cellular functions. Consequently, aberrant palmitoylation can lead to diseases such as neuronal disorders or cancer. In humans there are roughly one hundred times more palmitoylated proteins than enzymes catalyzing palmitoylation (palmitoyltransferases).

Flies Eat Their Veggies to Survive the Cold.

Although Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies are cold-blooded, they can survive a wide range of temperatures. In this issue of Developmental Cell, Brankatschk et al. (2018) discover a mechanism by which flies extend their viable temperature range by altering their diet in response to environmental temperature.

Oxygenation and adenosine deaminase support growth and proliferation of cultured wing imaginal discs.

The wing imaginal disc has been an important model system over past decades for discovering novel biology related to development, signaling and epithelial morphogenesis. Novel experimental approaches have been enabled using a culture setup that allows cultures of wing discs. Current setups, however, are not able to sustain both growth and cell-cycle progression of wing discs We discover here a setup that requires both oxygenation of the tissue and adenosine deaminase activity in the medium, and supports both growth and proliferation of wing discs for 9 h.

THADA Regulates the Organismal Balance between Energy Storage and Heat Production.

Human susceptibility to obesity is mainly genetic, yet the underlying evolutionary drivers causing variation from person to person are not clear. One theory rationalizes that populations that have adapted to warmer climates have reduced their metabolic rates, thereby increasing their propensity to store energy. We uncover here the function of a gene that supports this theory.

Protocols to Study Growth and Metabolism in Drosophila.

Signaling pathways such as the insulin/insulin-like growth factor pathway concurrently regulate organismal growth and metabolism. Drosophila has become a popular model system for studying both organismal growth and metabolic regulation. Care must be taken, however, when assessing such phenotypes because they are quantitative in nature, and influenced by environment.

PPP2R5C Couples Hepatic Glucose and Lipid Homeostasis.

In mammals, the liver plays a central role in maintaining carbohydrate and lipid homeostasis by acting both as a major source and a major sink of glucose and lipids. In particular, when dietary carbohydrates are in excess, the liver converts them to lipids via de novo lipogenesis. The molecular checkpoints regulating the balance between carbohydrate and lipid homeostasis, however, are not fully understood.

DENR-MCT-1 promotes translation re-initiation downstream of uORFs to control tissue growth.

During cap-dependent eukaryotic translation initiation, ribosomes scan messenger RNA from the 5' end to the first AUG start codon with favourable sequence context. For many mRNAs this AUG belongs to a short upstream open reading frame (uORF), and translation of the main downstream ORF requires re-initiation, an incompletely understood process. Re-initiation is thought to involve the same factors as standard initiation.

Insulin/IGF signaling drives cell proliferation in part via Yorkie/YAP.

The insulin/IGF signaling (IIS) pathway is a potent inducer of cell proliferation in normal development and in cancer. The mechanism by which this occurs, however, is not completely understood. The Hippo signaling pathway regulates cell proliferation via the transcriptional co-activator Yorkie/YAP, however the signaling inputs regulating Hippo activity are not fully elucidated.

Depression in patients with Huntington disease correlates with alterations of the brain stem raphe depicted by transcranial sonography.

Background: Transcranial sonography (TCS) has become a new diagnostic tool in the evaluation of extrapyramidal disorders. Studies of TCS report alterations of the mesencephalic raphe in patients with depression. The aim of this study was to evaluate TCS findings in patients with Huntington disease in correlation with their neurologic and psychiatric status.