Rideout

Regulated growth is essential for attaining the correct cell, tissue and organismal size – too much or too little growth during development causes growth disorders. Even after development is complete, the regulation of growth is essential for tissue repair and replacement during the whole of an animal’s life. In this case, deregulated growth disrupts tissue homeostasis, leading to an increased risk of cancer, and/or shortened lifespan. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms that control cell, tissue and body growth is not only a fundamental question in biology, but has significant implications for health research.

An important determinant of growth in all animals is sex. Male-female differences in cell, tissue and body size are widespread in the animal kingdom. In addition, the incidence and progression of some forms of cancer show a strong sex bias. Yet how the regulation of growth differs between males and females to produce these differences in size and health outcomes remains unclear. In our lab, we use the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model to study the genetic, molecular and physiological mechanisms that control male-female differences in cell and body size.

Our studies have uncovered many parallels between the sex-specific regulation of growth in flies and in mammals. The focus of our research is to use the power of Drosophila genetics to identify pathways that are regulated by sex, and to investigate how this regulation affects growth. In doing so, we will identify new roles for many pathways in controlling sex differences in cell, tissue and body size. Since many of these pathways also play roles in stress responses and lifespan, studying how their regulation and function differs in males and females will provide insight into sex differences in stress survival and aging.

1. A low sugar diet enhances Drosophila body size in males and females via sex-specific mechanisms (2022) JW Millington, P Biswas, C Chao, YH Xia, LW Wat, GP Brownrigg, Z Sun, PJ Basner-Collins, RIK Geltink, EJ Rideout, Development 149 (6): dev200491
2. Sex determination gene transformer regulates the male-female difference in Drosophila fat storage via the adipokinetic hormone pathway (2021) LW Wat, ZS Chowdhury, JW Millington, P Biswas, EJ Rideout, Elife 10, e72350
3. Developmental mechanisms of sex differences: from cells to organisms (2021) JE Mank, EJ Rideout, Development 148 (19), dev199750
4. Genetic manipulation of insulin/insulin-like growth factor signaling pathway activity has sex-biased effects on Drosophila body size (2021) JW Millington, GP Brownrigg, PJ Basner-Collins, Z Sun, EJ Rideout, G3 11 (3), jkaa067
5. Female-biased upregulation of insulin pathway activity mediates the sex difference in Drosophila body size plasticity (2021) JW Millington, GP Brownrigg, C Chao, Z Sun, PJ Basner-Collins, LW Wat, B Hudry, I Miguel-Aliaga, EJ Rideout, eLife 2021;10:e58341
6. A role for triglyceride lipase brummer in the regulation of sex differences in Drosophila fat storage and breakdown (2020) LW Wat, C Chao, R Bartlett, JL Buchanan, JW Millington, HJ Chih, ZS Chowdhury, P Biswas, V Huang, LJ Shin, LC Wang, MPL Gauthier, MC Barone, KL Montooth, MA Welte, EJ Rideout, PLoS biology 18 (1), e3000595
7. The Sex Determination Gene transformer Regulates Male-Female Differences in Drosophila Body Size (2015) EJ Rideout, MS Narsaiya, SS Grewal, PLoS genetics 11 (12), e1005683
8. Millington JW & Rideout EJ (2018) Sex differences in Drosophila development and physiology. Current Opinion in Physiology. 6, 46-56.

Further publications can be found here.