Polyphenism in insects, whereby a single genome expresses different phenotypes in response to environmental cues, is a fascinating biological phenomenon. Social insects are especially intriguing examples of phenotypic plasticity because division of labor results in the development of extreme morphological phenotypes, such as the queen and worker castes. Although sociality evolved independently in ants, bees, wasps and termites, similar genetic pathways regulate phenotypic plasticity in these different groups of social insects. The insulin/insulin-like growth signaling (IIS) plays a key role in this process. Recent research reveals that IIS interacts with other pathways including target of rapamycin (TOR), epidermal growth factor receptor (Egfr), juvenile hormone (JH) and vitellogenin (Vg) to regulate caste differentiation.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cois.2015.12.003 | DOI Listing |
Cell Commun Signal
January 2025
Department of Oncological Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, One Gustave L. Levy Place, New York, NY, 10029, USA.
One hallmark of cancer is the upregulation and dependency on glucose metabolism to fuel macromolecule biosynthesis and rapid proliferation. Despite significant pre-clinical effort to exploit this pathway, additional mechanistic insights are necessary to prioritize the diversity of metabolic adaptations upon acute loss of glucose metabolism. Here, we investigated a potent small molecule inhibitor to Class I glucose transporters, KL-11743, using glycolytic leukemia cell lines and patient-based model systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
January 2025
Frontiers Science Center for Molecular Design Breeding, Beijing Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.
During cold acclimation in high-latitude and high-altitude regions, japonica rice develops enhanced cold tolerance, but the underlying genetic basis remains unclear. Here, we identify CTB5, a homeodomain-leucine zipper (HD-Zip) transcription factor that confers cold tolerance at the booting stage in japonica rice. Four natural variations in the promoter and coding regions enhance cold response and transcriptional regulatory activity, enabling the favorable CTB5 allele to improve cold tolerance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlant Commun
January 2025
The Key Laboratory of Plant Development and Environmental Adaptation Biology, Ministry of Education; Shandong Key Laboratory of Precision Molecular Crop Design and Breeding; School of Life Sciences, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China. Electronic address:
UDP-glycosyltransferases (UGTs) constitute the largest glycosyltransferase family in the plant kingdom. They are responsible for transferring sugar moieties onto various small molecules to control many metabolic processes. However, their physiological significance in plants is largely unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlants (Basel)
January 2025
School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
: The functional traits of twigs and leaves are closely related to the ability of plants to cope with heterogeneous environments. The analysis of the characteristics of twigs and leaves and leaf thermal dissipation in riparian plants is of great significance for exploring the light energy allocation and ecological adaptation strategies of plant leaves in heterogeneous habitats. However, there are few studies on the correlation between the twig-leaf characteristics of riparian plants and their heat dissipation in light heterogeneous environments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlants (Basel)
January 2025
Department of Botany, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh 202002, India.
Plants face a range of environmental stresses, such as heat and drought, that significantly reduce their growth, development, and yield. Plants have developed complex signaling networks to regulate physiological processes and improve their ability to withstand stress. The key regulators of plant stress responses include polyamines (PAs) and gaseous signaling molecules (GSM), such as hydrogen sulfide (HS), nitric oxide (NO), methane (CH), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO), and ethylene (ET).
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