2007 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Molecular analysis on the novel mechanism ofthe polarity formation induced by Wnt signaling
| Project/Area Number |
18570199
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Developmental biology
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| Research Institution | Osaka University |
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Principal Investigator |
NAKAMURA Kuniaki Osaka University, Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, Designated Researcher (70311305)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2006 – 2007
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| Keywords | Wnt signaling / cell polarity / C. elegans / genetics / embryogenesis |
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| Research Abstract |
Wnt proteins are secreted signaling molecules important to establish cell polarity in numerous developmental events in animals. β-catenin is a key effecter playing a role in the transcriptional regulation of the target genes which is mediated through interactions with members of the TCF/LEF family. Despite the great progress made on the quantitative regulation of β-catenin, little is known about how Wnt signaling induce the cell polarity through it. The early development of C. elegans provides a good model system where the localization of β-catenin is regulated during the asymmetric cell divisions. In our study on EMS cell division β-catenin appears to represent a nexus for coordinating signals from the membrane and facilitating their transduction to the nucleus. Therefore the goal of this project is to understand the molecular mechanism in which the wnt/frizzled signal leads to the regulation of target gene expression in the nucleus to establish the cell polarity.
In this research project we first executed a suppressor screening using temperature-sensitive mutant of β-catenin to find novel molecules acting in asymmetric EMS cell division. We isolated at least three complementation groups of suppressors, including the internal suppressor, a novel allele of pop-1, and a novel gene. The isolation of pop-1 allele suggests that our screening works well enough to identify the molecules involved in this signal transduction pathway. In addition, we found that the internal suppressor is useful for the identification of the signaling molecules as well; mig-5 and nmy-2 are clearly shown to be involved in this pathway. Therefore we decided to analyze the real-time localization of these molecules during EMS cell division. We found GFP-tagged nmy-2 is localized at the plasma membrane at the same time with β-catenin, suggesting that Wnt signaling somehow regulate the localization and/or function of nmy-2 molecule to establish cell polarity.
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