Consumption of excess alcohol during pregnancy can cause fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), but exactly how alcohol disrupts normal development is unclear. McClure et al. now report that fruit flies reared on ethanol show several characteristics of human FAS, including reduced viability, and abnormal development and behaviour. These changes are caused largely by reduced Drosophila insulin-like peptide and insulin receptor expression. This model can now be used to screen for modifiers of FAS that might help to prevent or treat the syndrome in humans.
Page 335
Written by editorial staff. © 2011. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.
2011
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly cited and all further distributions of the work or adaptation are subject to the same Creative Commons License terms.
