Nutritional control of body size through FoxO-Ultraspiracle mediated ecdysone biosynthesis

Despite their fundamental importance for body size regulation, the mechanisms that stop growth are poorly understood. In Drosophila melanogaster, growth ceases in response to a peak of the molting hormone ecdysone that coincides with a nutrition-dependent checkpoint, critical weight. Previous studies indicate that insulin/insulin-like growth factor signaling (IIS)/Target of Rapamycin (TOR) signaling in the prothoracic glands (PGs) regulates ecdysone biosynthesis and critical weight. Here we elucidate a mechanism through which this occurs. We show that Forkhead Box class O (FoxO), a negative regulator of IIS/TOR, directly interacts with Ultraspiracle (Usp), part of the ecdysone receptor. While overexpressing FoxO in the PGs delays ecdysone biosynthesis and critical weight, disrupting FoxO–Usp binding reduces these delays. Further, feeding ecdysone to larvae eliminates the effects of critical weight. Thus, nutrition controls ecdysone biosynthesis partially via FoxO–Usp prior to critical weight, ensuring that growth only stops once larvae have achieved a target nutritional status. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.03091.001

• Publication year

  2014

• Venue

  eLife

• Publication date

  2014-11-25

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.7554/eLife.03091PMID 25421296PMCID 4337420
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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