HLH-30/TFEB is a master regulator of reproductive quiescence

All animals have evolved the ability to survive nutrient deprivation, and nutrient signaling pathways are conserved modulators of health and disease. In C. elegans, late-larval starvation provokes adult reproductive diapause (ARD), a long-lived quiescent state that enables animals to survive months without food, yet underlying molecular mechanisms remain unknown. Here, we show that ARD is distinct from other forms of diapause, and shows surprisingly little requirement for canonical longevity pathways, autophagy and fat metabolism. Instead ARD depends dramatically on HLH-30/TFEB transcription factor to promote morphologic and metabolic remodeling involved in ARD entry, survival, and recovery, suggesting it is a master regulator of reproductive quiescence. TFEB transcriptome and genetic analyses reveal that Max-like HLH factors, mTOR, AMP-kinase, protein synthesis, and mitochondrial fusion are target processes that promote ARD longevity. Evidently reproductive quiescence rewires metabolism in unique ways to ensure long-term survival, and could illuminate similar mechanisms acting in latent tumorigenesis, and long-term fasting. Trancsriptome of C. elegans wild type and hlh-30 under ad libitum bacteria conditions and 24 hours of ARD starvation.