The SKN-1 hunger games: May the odds be ever in your favor.

Animals must continually assess nutrient availability to develop appropriate strategies for survival and reproductive success. It is no secret that nutritional state plays a large role in both aging and health.(1-7) Appropriate cellular energy usage is not only crucial for animal starvation survival, but is also important for diseases such as obesity and cancer, which characteristically have metabolic dysfunction.(8-10) C. elegans are exceptionally well poised to handle bouts of starvation as resource availability in the wild varies greatly.(11,12) We recently discovered an evolutionarily conserved pathway, regulated by the cytoprotective transcription factor SKN-1/Nrf2, which integrates diet composition and availability with utilization for survival.(13,14) These responses have potent impact on organismal physiology and remarkably are influenced by current and parental life history events, including choice of diet. In this commentary we will focus on recent insights concerning dietary intake and the impact that this can have throughout the life history of the nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans. In light of the strong impact that diet plays throughout life we urge caution when interpreting previous studies that make use of only one diet and suggest a reinvestigation utilizing a different diet is warranted.