Neurohormonal signalling controls insulin sensitivity and specificity in C. elegans

Insulin and insulin-like growth factor signalling regulates a broad spectrum of growth and metabolic responses to a variety of internal and environmental stimuli. Such responses can be tailored to the environment so that changes in insulin signalling result in distinct physiological responses to different stimuli. For example, the inhibition of insulin-like signalling by osmotic stress or by starvation of C. elegans results in physiologically distinct states and patterns of gene expression. How does insulin-like signalling elicit different responses to different environmental stimuli? We report that neurohormonal signalling involving the C. elegans cytosolic sulfotransferase SSU-1 controls developmental arrest in response to osmotic stress but not to starvation; that SSU-1 functions in a single pair of sensory neurons to control signalling via the nuclear hormone receptor NHR-1; that signalling controlled by SSU-1 acts antagonistically to insulin-like signalling; and that the FOXO transcription factor DAF-16, a downstream effector of insulin-like signalling, enters the nucleus in response to osmotic stress but activates gene expression only if SSU-1 is active. We propose that neurohormonal signalling controlled by one or more cytosolic sulfotransferases similarly regulates the specificity of responses to changes in insulin signalling during periods of environmental stress in other organisms and that abnormalities in such sulfotransferase-controlled neurohormonal signalling might contribute to human disorders that involve insulin signalling, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.