ArticlePLoS biology2017
The sex of specific neurons controls female body growth in Drosophila.
Article in PLoS biology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 61 citations in OpenAlex.
- Gut-derived Unpaired-3 cytokine signaling promotes systemic hypoxia tolerance in Drosophila.Disease models & mechanisms · 2026Article
- Neuronal protein Sex-lethal modulates tRNA synthesis via the polymerase III subunit Polr3E in male Drosophila neurons.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Sex differences in the regulation and function of cellular immunity in Drosophila.PLoS genetics · 2026Article
- Sexual identity of Akh neurons shapes Nucb1-dependent metabolic and reproductive plasticity.iScience · 2026Article
- Article
- Article
- Early attainment of 20-hydroxyecdysone threshold shapes mosquito sexual dimorphism in developmental timing.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Sex-dimorphic tumor growth is regulated by tumor microenvironmental and systemic signals.Science advances · 2024Article
- Cellular sex throughout the organism underlies somatic sexual differentiation.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Heat tolerance inPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Three Copies ofBiology · 2024Article
- Drosophila expressing mutant human KCNT1 transgenes make an effective tool for targeted drug screening in a whole animal model of KCNT1-epilepsy.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Y chromosome toxicity does not contribute to sex-specific differences in longevity.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
- Sex-biased gene expression in nutrient-sensing pathways.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Transcriptome analysis of sex-biased gene expression in the spotted-wing Drosophila, Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura).G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2022Article
- Sex-specific aging in animals: Perspective and future directions.Aging cell · 2022Review
- Noncanonical function of the Sex lethal gene controls the protogyny phenotype in Drosophila melanogaster.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Sex determination geneeLife · 2021Article
- Interplay between sex determination cascade and major signaling pathways during Drosophila eye development: Perspectives for future research.Developmental biology · 2021Review
- Discovering signaling mechanisms governing metabolism and metabolic diseases with Drosophila.Cell metabolism · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Sexual dimorphisms in body size are widespread throughout the animal kingdom but their underlying mechanisms are not well characterized. Most models for how sex chromosome genes specify size dimorphism have emphasized the importance of gonadal hormones and cell-autonomous influences in mammals versus strictly cell-autonomous mechanisms in Drosophila melanogaster. Here, we use tissue-specific genetics to investigate how sexual size dimorphism (SSD) is established in Drosophila. We find that the larger body size characteristic of Drosophila females is established very early in larval development via an increase in the growth rate per unit of body mass. We demonstrate that the female sex determination gene, Sex-lethal (Sxl), functions in central nervous system (CNS) neurons as part of a relay that specifies the early sex-specific growth trajectories of larval but not imaginal tissues. Neuronal Sxl acts additively in 2 neuronal subpopulations, one of which corresponds to 7 median neurosecretory cells: the insulin-producing cells (IPCs). Surprisingly, however, male-female differences in the production of insulin-like peptides (Ilps) from the IPCs do not appear to be involved in establishing SSD in early larvae, although they may play a later role. These findings support a relay model in which Sxl in neurons and Sxl in local tissues act together to specify the female-specific growth of the larval body. They also reveal that, even though the sex determination pathways in Drosophila and mammals are different, they both modulate body growth via a combination of tissue-autonomous and nonautonomous inputs.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.