Development consists of a highly ordered suite of steps and transitions, like choreography. Although these sequences are often evolutionarily conserved, they can display species variations in duration and speed, thereby modifying final organ size or function. Despite their evolutionary significance, the mechanisms underlying species-specific scaling of developmental tempo have remained unclear. Here, we will review recent findings that implicate global cellular mechanisms, particularly intermediary and protein metabolism, as species-specific modifiers of developmental tempo. In various systems, from somitic cell oscillations to neuronal development, metabolic pathways display species differences. These have been linked to mitochondrial metabolism, which can influence the species-specific speed of developmental transitions. Thus, intermediary metabolic pathways regulate developmental tempo together with other global processes, including proteostasis and chromatin remodeling. By linking metabolism and the evolution of developmental trajectories, these findings provide opportunities to decipher how species-specific cellular timing can influence organism fitness.

开发由一套高度有序的步骤和过渡组成，例如编排。尽管这些序列通常在进化上是保守的，但它们可以显示物种在持续时间和速度上的变化，从而改变最终的器官大小或功能。尽管它们具有进化意义，但物种特异性发育速度缩放的机制仍不清楚。在这里，我们将回顾最近的发现，这些发现暗示了全球细胞机制，特别是中间代谢和蛋白质代谢，作为发育速度的物种特异性调节剂。在各种系统中，从体细胞振荡到神经元发育，代谢途径显示出物种差异。这些与线粒体代谢有关，线粒体代谢可以影响物种特异性的发育转变速度。因此，中间代谢途径与其他整体过程（包括蛋白质稳态和染色质重塑）一起调节发育节奏。通过将新陈代谢和发育轨迹的进化联系起来，这些发现为破译物种特异性细胞计时如何影响生物体适应性提供了机会。