Game of Zinc

Hold on don’t rush! That’s the plea behind the name of zinc-sensing protein Hodor, which regulates fruit fly developmental growth and food intake. The ability of organisms to sense nutrients is crucial in helping flies adapt to their environment. Discovered in the fly’s intestine (pictured), Hodor (stained green), only found in insects, uses zinc to transport chloride ions out of intestinal cells to maintain water balance, which is in turn essential for homeostasis. Increasing the expression of Hodor and of dietary zinc levels results in fruit flies feeding more, while decreased expression of Hodor leads to slower feeding and slower development of the flies’ larvae. This hints at the importance of zinc and other micro-nutrients in helping organisms identify nutrient-rich food sources. These findings could be useful in insect vector control through the development of ingestible drugs that target specific parasites. For example, targeted drugs might even be able to eliminate malaria-propagating mosquitoes.

Read more about this research at the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences here

Written by Lauren Green

Lauren Green

Writer

Lauren is the current MRC LMS Science Communications Intern and is a student at the University of Southampton reading Biology. Her favourite topics to learn include genetics, cancer and physiology.

• Image from work by Siamak Redhai and Clare Pilgrim, and colleagues
• Gut Signalling and Metabolism Group, MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS)
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Nature, March 2020