Metabolic pathways, for many years relegated to the backbenches of biochemistry lecture halls, have now been firmly reinstated as a central driving force throughout cell biology. We have learnt much about how cells rapidly adapt to changing nutrient availability, alter their metabolism to meet their changing needs and integrate this information about their metabolic state with diverse cell behaviours.

Technical advances have facilitated this conceptual shift. Our ability to 'read out' the metabolic state of cells has been enabled in part by advances in mass spectrometry, and the increasing use of metabolomics is providing unexpected links between altered metabolic profiles and cellular phenotypes.

The influence of signal transduction on metabolic pathways has been appreciated for some time, but the extent to which this regulation is reciprocal is only now becoming clear. In addition to intracellular energy sensors such as AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and sirtuins, which have key roles in metabolic homeostasis, metabolites themselves can alter signal transduction by regulating metabolite-sensitive protein modifications. By associating with nuclear receptors, metabolites can also directly mediate changes in gene expression, and such metabolism-associated changes in gene expression can also be fine-tuned by microRNAs.

Here we present a collection of specially commissioned articles, which highlight how metabolic pathways interface with cell biological processes, and the implications of this for the development of metabolic disorders.