A multicomponent screen for feeding behaviour and nutritional status in Drosophila to interrogate mammalian appetite-related genes

•High-throughput technologies have generated many candidate genes with a potential role in the control of food intake and body weight.•Gaining an understanding of appetite requires exploration in the context of a whole animal, but studies in humans and mice require a long duration and are expensive.•The fruit fly is evolutionarily distant but has conserved neuronal circuitry involved in the control of food intake.•Use of fruit flies is time and cost efficient; therefore, Drosophila represent a useful model system for screening candidate genes implicated in feeding behaviour and obesity in mammals.