Life and death of cold-water corals

Metabolic homeostasis is coordinated through a robust network of signaling pathways acting across all tissues. Ava Handley, Roger Pocock and colleagues show that C. elegans nematodes fed excess dietary glucose reduce the expression of insulin-1 specifically in the BAG glutamatergic sensory neurons, and that insulin-1 produced by these neurons systemically inhibits fat storage via the insulin-like receptor DAF-2.

Temporal transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis of melanogenesis, by Farina Sultan, Vivek Natarajan, Rajesh Gokhale and co-authors, reveals fatty acid metabolism as a crucial mediator of the transition between pigmentation phases; inhibitors of the fatty acid pathway could represent a new target for modulating pigmentation.

How do double-membraned Gram-negative bacteria overcome lipid peroxidation stress? Marwa Naguib, Nicolás Feldman, Miguel Valvano and colleagues show that a periplasmic lipocalin, a membrane cytochrome b561, and a cytoplasmic aldehyde reductase are components of a novel evolutionarily conserved peroxidation detoxification system for lipid peroxyl radicals.