• Metabolism does more than fuel embryonic growth; it also sends out signals that control the tempo of development.
• Metabolism consists of metabolic activities and signalling that occurs as a part of those activities, which makes it challenging to dissociate these functions.
• Scientists found that metabolism signals to control the tempo of development in a manner distinctly separate from its role in energy and biomass production. They identified a specific sugar molecule that can function as a signalling molecule to control the rhythm of the segmentation clock, which is essentially a ‘biological clock’ that controls the tempo of development.

When metabolism provides more than fuel | EMBL

A new study observed the key signalling role that metabolism plays in controlling the tempo of development.

EMBL (www.embl.org)