The effect of developmental stage on the sensitivity of cell and body size to hypoxia in Drosophila melanogaster

Body size determination in insects: a review and synthesis of size- and brain-dependent and independent mechanisms

Body size determination requires a mechanism for sensing size and a mechanism for linking size information to the termination of growth. Although the hormonal mechanisms that terminate growth are well elucidated, the mechanisms by which a body senses its own size are only partially understood; most of this understanding has come from the study of the mechanisms that control insect moulting and metamorphosis. We first review and discuss advances in our understanding of the physiological mechanisms by which insect larvae sense their size. Second, we present new findings on how larvae in which the size-sensing mechanism has been disrupted eventually terminate growth (in a size-independent manner). We synthesize recent insights into the genetic and molecular mechanisms of ecdysteroid regulation in Drosophila melanogaster with developmental physiology findings in Manduca sexta, paving the way for an integrated understanding of the mechanisms of body size regulation.

Mass and volume growth of larval insect tracheal system within a single instar

Organisms must accommodate oxygen delivery to developing tissues as body mass increases during growth. In insects, the growth of the respiratory system has been assumed to occur only when it molts, whereas body mass and volume increase during the larval stages between molts. This decouples whole body growth from the growth of the oxygen supply system. This assumption is derived from the observation that the insect respiratory system is an invagination of the exoskeleton, which must be shed during molts for continued growth to occur. Here, we provide evidence that this assumption is incorrect. We found that the respiratory system increases substantially in both mass and volume within the last larval instar of Manduca sexta larvae, and that the growth of the respiratory system changes with diet quality, potentially as a consequence of shifting metabolic demands.

Identification of genes underlying hypoxia tolerance in Drosophila by a P-element screen

Hypoxia occurs in physiologic conditions (e.g. high altitude) or during pathologic states (e.g. ischemia). Our research is focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms that lead to adaptation and survival or injury to hypoxic stress using Drosophila as a model system. To identify genes involved in hypoxia tolerance, we screened the P-SUP P-element insertion lines available for all the chromosomes of Drosophila. We screened for the eclosion rates of embryos developing under 5% O(2) condition and the number of adult flies surviving one week after eclosion in the same hypoxic environment. Out of 2187 lines (covering ~1870 genes) screened, 44 P-element lines representing 44 individual genes had significantly higher eclosion rates (i.e. >70%) than those of the controls (i.e. ~7-8%) under hypoxia. The molecular function of these candidate genes ranged from cell cycle regulation, DNA or protein binding, GTP binding activity, and transcriptional regulators. In addition, based on pathway analysis, we found these genes are involved in multiple pathways, such as Notch, Wnt, Jnk, and Hedgehog. Particularly, we found that 20 out of the 44 candidate genes are linked to Notch signaling pathway, strongly suggesting that this pathway is essential for hypoxia tolerance in flies. By employing the UAS/RNAi-Gal4 system, we discovered that genes such as osa (linked to Wnt and Notch pathways) and lqf (Notch regulator) play an important role in survival and development under hypoxia in Drosophila. Based on these results and our previous studies, we conclude that hypoxia tolerance is a polygenic trait including the Notch pathway.

Control of body size by oxygen supply reveals size-dependent and size-independent mechanisms of molting and metamorphosis

Body size profoundly affects many aspects of animal biology, including metamorphosis, allometry, size-dependent alternative pathways of gene expression, and the social and ecological roles of individuals. However, regulation of body size is one of the fundamental unsolved problems in developmental biology. The control of body size requires a mechanism that assesses size and stops growth within a characteristic range of sizes. Under normal growth conditions in Manduca sexta, the endocrine cascade that causes the brain to initiate metamorphosis starts when the larva reaches a critical weight. Metamorphosis is initiated by a size-sensing mechanism, but the nature of this mechanism has remained elusive. Here we show that this size-sensing mechanism depends on the limited ability of a fixed tracheal system to sustain the oxygen supply to a growing individual. As body mass increases, the demand for oxygen also increases, but the fixed tracheal system does not allow a corresponding increase in oxygen supply. We show that interinstar molting has the same size-related oxygen-dependent mechanism of regulation as metamorphosis. We show that low oxygen tension induces molting at smaller body size, consistent with the hypothesis that under normal growth conditions, body size is regulated by a mechanism that senses oxygen limitation. We also found that under poor growth conditions, larvae may never attain the critical weight but eventually molt regardless. We show that under these conditions, larvae do not use the critical weight mechanism, but instead use a size-independent mechanism that is independent of the brain.