The prevalence of Type II diabetes is rapidly increasing in the US. This is in part due to the huge increase in the number of obese people. A second factor that predisposes individuals to Type II diabetes is age. As individuals age, they become more likely to develop Type II diabetes. Although the connection between obesity, aging, and the onset of Type II diabetes is clear, the molecular details remain to be determined. The long-term goal of this project is to uncover the molecular mechanism that explains the connection between insulin-like signaling, aging and fat storage, so that Type II diabetes and can be better controlled in humans. Here, we use the nematode, C. elegans, as our model system since the insulin signaling pathway is highly conserved between humans and C. elegans, and nematodes have emerged as an excellent system to study insulin signaling. In this proposal, we seek to identify new genes and new pathways coupled to the C. elegans insulin-like signaling pathway to determine how this signaling network controls both life span and fat storage. The proposed studies will test our hypothesis that mutations in the insulin-like signaling pathway lead to changes in life span and fat storage because these processes have an underlying molecular connection.
Our specific aims are to: (1) Identify the role of neurotransmitter signaling upstream of daf-2; (2) Define the role of the tub-1 gene in regulation of life span and fat storage; and (3) Determine the mechanism for JNK control of life span and fat storage. Although each aim is independent, investigating a different part of the insulin-like signaling pathway, at each step we will be analyzing the effects of mutations on life span and fat storage. We are confident that understanding the molecular connection between life span, fat storage, and insulin-like signaling will have relevance to mammalian systems because all of the genes and pathways appear conserved.
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