Nutritional control of postembryonic development progression and arrest in Caenorhabditis elegans

Developmental programs are under strict genetic control that favors robustness of the process. In order to guarantee the same outcome in different environmental situations, development is modulated by input pathways, which inform about external conditions. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the process of postembryonic development involves a series of stereotypic cell divisions, the progression of which is controlled by the nutritional status of the animal. C. elegans can arrest development at different larval stages, leading to cell arrest of the relevant divisions of the stage. This means that studying the nutritional control of development in C. elegans we can learn about the mechanisms controlling cell division in an in vivo model. In this work, we reviewed the current knowledge about the nutrient sensing pathways that control the progression or arrest of development in response to nutrient availability, with a special focus on the arrest at the L1 stage.