[
PLoS Genet,
2007]
A pandemic of metabolic diseases (atherosclerosis, diabetes mellitus, and obesity), unleashed by multiple social and economic factors beyond the control of most individuals, threatens to diminish human life span for the first time in the modern era. Given the redundancy and inherent complexity of processes regulating the uptake, transport, catabolism, and synthesis of nutrients, magic bullets to target these diseases will be hard to find. Recent studies using the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, the fly Drosophila melanogaster, and the zebrafish Danio rerio indicate that these "lower" metazoans possess unique attributes that should help in identifying, investigating, and even validating new pharmaceutical targets for these diseases. We summarize findings in these organisms that shed light on highly conserved pathways of energy homeostasis.
[
Circ Res,
1994]
Genetics is a powerful tool, especially when used in combination with embryology, in the seeking of genes necessary for assembly of the cardiovasculature. The first questions must address the types of cellular decisions that are made during development. As for simpler systems in C elegans and D melanogaster, the lineage and cell-fate decisions of the cardiovascular progenitors need to be assessed. In addition it is likely that new paradigms will emerge for multicellular assembly. The study of cardiovascular mutations will define individual genetic steps that define organotypic decisions. A genetic approach is a natural extension of embryology, physiology, and anatomy, fields of great sophistication with regard to the cardiovasculature, because, like them, it focuses on integrative biology and on the intact organism. The zebrafish is particularly well suited to a combination genetic-embryologic study of the fashioning of the cardiovasculature.