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The healthy diabetic cavefish conundrum

Some Mexican cavefish have a mutation in an insulin receptor protein that affects blood-glucose regulation. The same mutation causes diabetes and health problems in humans, but the diabetic cavefish thrive.
  1. Sylvie Rétaux

    1. Sylvie Rétaux is at the Paris-Saclay Institute of Neuroscience, University of Paris-Sud and University of Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette 91198, France.

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Blind Mexican cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus) live in dark caves, a challenging environment that has shaped their evolution. In a paper in Nature, Riddle et al.1 reveal the surprising way in which cavefish regulate their glucose metabolism, a finding that might have implications for our understanding of human diabetes.

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Nature 555, 595-597 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-03242-0

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