Opposing insulin signals underlie the same developmental switch across hemipteran insects

  • Sci Adv. 2026 Feb 13;12(7):eaea4413. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aea4413.
Jin-Li Zhang  1  2 ,  Yong-Kang Liu  1 ,  Yi Wan  1 ,  Hui-Jie Wu  1 ,  Ni-Tong Xu  1 ,  Zhuo-Qi Liu  1 ,  Heng-Guang Huang  1 ,  Jia-Peng Yang  1 ,  Xin-Yang Liu  1 ,  Xu-Mei Luo  1 ,  Yi-Song Li  3 ,  Qi-Sheng Song  4 ,  Frederik H Nijhout  5 ,  Ehab Abouheif  6 ,  Hai-Jun Xu  1
Affiliations
  • 1. State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology and Breeding, Institute of Insect Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
  • 2. China National Rice Research Institute, Hangzhou 311400, China.
  • 3. The College of Agronomy, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Xinjiang, China.
  • 4. Division of Plant Science & Technology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
  • 5. Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham 27710, NC, USA.
  • 6. Center for Evolutionary & Organismal Biology, Women's Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
PMID: 41686885 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aea4413
Abstract

Across metazoans, the Insulin/insulin-like signaling (IIS) pathway is assumed to promote organ growth. We found that genes within the IIS pathway evolved opposite roles in organ growth across wing-dimorphic insects, playing opposite roles in regulating the developmental switch between short and long wings. In the firebug, the InR-Chico-PI3K-PDK1-Tsc1/2-TORC1 cascade redirects the switch from short to long wings by inactivating IIS, whereas in the planthopper, the InR-Chico-PI3K-Akt-FoxO cascade redirects this same switch by activating IIS. Activation or inactivation of IIS results in low ecdysteroid titers in both species by regulating different genes within the ecdysteroid biosynthesis pathway, which in turn induces long wing development. Our findings reveal a negative relationship between IIS and organ growth and a mechanism for how a hormone pathway can translate opposing IIS activities into the same developmental switch across species.

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