The roles of juvenile hormone, insulin/target of rapamycin, and ecydsone signaling in regulating body size in Drosophila

Understanding how organisms regu-late their body size has interested biologists for decades. Recent work has shown that both insulin/target of rapa-mycin (TOR) signaling and the steroid hormone ecdysone act to regulate rates of growth and the duration of the growth period in the fruit fly, Drosophila mela-nogaster. Our recent work has uncovered a third level of interaction, whereby juve-nile hormone (JH) regulates levels of both ecdysone and insulin/TOR signal-ing to control growth rates. These studies highlight a complex network of interac-tions involved in regulating body and organ size