Review Lipid metabolism in Drosophila: development and disease

Proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids are three major compo-nents of the cell. Despite a few basic metabolic pathways, we know very little about lipids, compared with the explo-sion of knowledge about proteins and nucleic acids. How many different forms of lipids are there? What are the in vivo functions of individual lipid? How does lipid me-tabolism contribute to normal development and human health? Many of these questions remain unanswered. For over a century, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has been used as a model organism to study basic biological questions. In recent years, increasing evidences proved that Drosophila models are highly valuable for lipid me-tabolism and energy homeostasis researches. Some recent progresses of lipid metabolic regulation during Drosophila development and in Drosophila models of human diseases will be discussed in this review