Control of metabolism and growth through insulin-like peptides in Drosophila

Insulin signaling is a conserved feature in all metazoans. It evolved with the appearance of multicellularity, allowing primordial metazoans to respond to a greater diversity of environmental signals. The insulin signaling pathway is highly conserved in insects and particularly in Drosophila, where it has been extensively studied in recent years and shown to control metabolism, growth, reproduction, and longevity. Because misregulation of the insulin/IGF pathway in humans plays a role in many medical disorders, such as diabetes and various types of cancer, unraveling the regulation of insulin/IGF signaling using the power of a genetically tractable organism like Drosophila may contribute to the amelioration of these major human pathologies.