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Abstract
C. elegans provides a genetically tractable system for deciphering the homeostatic mechanisms that underlie fat regulation in intact organisms. Here, we provide an overview of the recent advances in the C. elegans fat field with particular attention to studies of C. elegans lipid droplets, the complex links between lipases, autophagy, and lifespan, and analyses of key transcriptional regulatory mechanisms that coordinate lipid homeostasis. These studies demonstrate the ancient origins of mammalian and C. elegans fat regulatory pathways and highlight how C. elegans is being used to identify and analyze novel lipid pathways that are then shown to function similarly in mammals. Despite its many advantages, study of fat regulation in C. elegans is currently faced with a number of conceptual and methodological challenges. We critically evaluate some of the assumptions in the field and highlight issues that we believe should be taken into consideration when interpreting lipid content data in C. elegans.
Acknowledgements
We thank Marc Van Gilst for the electron micrographs of C. elegans intestine as well as his views on lipid partition in the C. elegans intestine. We thank Aude Bouagnon and Mihir Vohra for helpful discussions of the manuscript.
Declaration of interest
This research was supported by funds from Program In Breakthrough Biomedical Research, UCSF Diabetes Family Fund for Innovative Patient Care and an R21 ES021412 from NIEHS. The funding sources had no role in determining the content included in this review. The authors declare no competing interests.