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First published online June 6, 2008

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Worming into steroid and insulin signal intersection

In C. elegans larvae, steroid hormone signalling functions with insulin/IGF-1-like signalling to promote reproductive development and to prevent dauer arrest - in hostile conditions, larvae enter the dormant diapausal dauer stage instead of becoming adults. Now, Patel and colleagues have discovered a key enzyme in the biosynthetic pathway used by C. elegans to make steroid hormones - HSD-1, which is orthologous to vertebrate 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases (3β-HSDs; see p. 2239). They found HSD-1 by screening for mutations that enhance the dauer phenotype of ncr-1 mutants; NCR-1 and NCR-2 are intracellular cholesterol transporters that prevent dauer arrest. hsd-1; ncr-1 double mutants, they report, fail to inhibit dauer arrest; feeding these worms with certain steroid hormone precursors rescues this defect. They also show that reduction of the HSD-1-mediated steroid signal alters the subcellular localization of the DAF-16/FOXO transcription factor, a component of the insulin signalling pathway. This important result reveals a novel way in which steroid hormone and insulin/IGF-1-like signalling can intersect to direct development.

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Related articles in Development:

Genetic identification of HSD-1, a conserved steroidogenic enzyme that directs larval development in Caenorhabditis elegans

Dhaval S. Patel, Lily L. Fang, Danika K. Svy, Gary Ruvkun, and Weiqing Li
Development 2008 135: 2239-2249. [Abstract] [Full Text]  

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Related articles in Development Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?