During the metamorphic reorganization of the insect central nervous system, the steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone induces a wide spectrum of cellular responses including neuronal proliferation, maturation, cell death and the remodeling of larval neurons into their adult forms. In Drosophila, expression of specific ecdysone receptor (EcR) isoforms has been correlated with particular responses, suggesting that different EcR isoforms may govern distinct steroid-induced responses in these cells. We have used imprecise excision of a P element to create EcR deletion mutants that remove the EcR-B promoter and therefore should lack EcR-B1 and EcR-B2 expression but retain EcR-A expression. Most of these EcR-B mutant animals show defects in larval molting, arresting at the boundaries between the three larval stages, while a smaller percentage of EcR-B mutants survive into the early stages of metamorphosis. Remodeling of larval neurons at metamorphosis begins with the pruning back of larval-specific dendrites and occurs as these cells are expressing high levels of EcR-B1 and little EcR-A. This pruning response is blocked in the EcR-B mutants despite the fact that adult-specific neurons, which normally express only EcR-A, can progress in their development. These observations support the hypothesis that different EcR isoforms control cell-type-specific responses during remodeling of the nervous system at metamorphosis.

The eye primordium of the moth, Manduca sexta, shows two different developmental responses to ecdysteroids depending on the concentration to which it is exposed. Tonic exposure to moderate levels of 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) or its precursor, ecdysone, are required for progression of the morphogenetic furrow across the primordium. Proliferation, cell-type specification and organization of immature ommatidial clusters occur in conjunction with furrow progression. These events can be reversibly started or stopped in cultured primordia simply by adjusting levels of ecdysteroid to be above or below a critical threshold concentration. In contrast, high levels of 20E cause maturation of the photoreceptors and the support cells that comprise the ommatidia. Ommatidial maturation normally occurs after the furrow has crossed the primordium, but premature exposure to high levels of 20E at any time causes precocious maturation. In such cases, the furrow arrests irreversibly and cells behind the furrow produce a well-formed, but miniature, eye. Precocious and catastrophic metamorphosis occurs throughout such animals, suggesting that ecdysteroids control development of other tissues in a manner similar to the eye. The threshold concentrations of 20E required for furrow progression versus ommatidial maturation differ by about 17-fold. This capacity to regulate distinct phases of development by different concentrations of a single hormone is probably achieved by differential sensitivity of target gene promoters to induction by the hormone-bound receptor(s).