Publication
Title
Eat to reproduce: a key role for the insulin signaling pathway in adult insects
Author
Abstract
Insects, like all heterotrophic organisms, acquire from their food the nutrients that are essential for anabolic processes that lead to growth (larval stages) or reproduction (adult stage). In adult females, this nutritional input is processed and results in a very specific output, i.e., the production of fully developed eggs ready for fertilization and deposition. An important role in this input-output transition is attributed to the insulin signaling pathway (ISP). The ISP is considered to act as a sensor of the organism's nutritional status and to stimulate the progression of anabolic events when the status is positive. In several insect species belonging to different orders, the ISP has been demonstrated to positively control vitellogenesis and oocyte growth. Whether or not ISP acts herein via a mediator action of lipophilic insect hormones (ecdysteroids and juvenile hormone) remains debatable and might be differently controlled in different insect orders. Most likely, insulin-related peptides, ecdysteroids and juvenile hormone are involved in a complex regulatory network, in which they mutually influence each other and in which the insect's nutritional status is a crucial determinant of the network's output. The current review will present an overview of the regulatory role of the ISP in female insect reproduction and its interaction with other pathways involving nutrients, lipophilic hormones and neuropeptides.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Frontiers in physiology / Frontiers Research Foundation (Lausanne, Switzerland) - [Lausanne], 2010, currens
Publication
Lausanne : Frontiers media sa , 2013
ISSN
1664-042X
DOI
10.3389/FPHYS.2013.00202
Volume/pages
4 (2013) , 16 p.
Article Reference
202
ISI
000346774000199
Medium
E-only publicatie
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
UAntwerpen
Research group
Publication type
Subject
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 09.07.2019
Last edited 05.09.2024
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