Wnt signaling drives WRM-1/β-catenin asymmetries in early C. elegans embryos

  1. Kuniaki Nakamura1,
  2. Soyoung Kim1,
  3. Takao Ishidate1,
  4. Yanxia Bei1,
  5. Kaming Pang1,
  6. Masaki Shirayama1,
  7. Chris Trzepacz1,
  8. Daniel R. Brownell2, and
  9. Craig C. Mello1,2,3
  1. 1Program in Molecular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts 01605, USA; 2Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Abstract

β-Catenin regulates cell adhesion and cellular differentiation during development, and misregulation of β-catenin contributes to numerous forms of cancer in humans. Here we describe Caenorhabditis elegans conditional alleles of mom-2/Wnt, mom-4/Tak1, and wrm-1/β-catenin. We use these reagents to examine the regulation of WRM-1/β-catenin during a Wnt-signaling-induced asymmetric cell division. While WRM-1 protein initially accumulates in the nuclei of all cells, signaling promotes the retention of WRM-1 in nuclei of responding cells. We show that both PRY-1/Axin and the nuclear exportin homolog IMB-4/CRM-1 antagonize signaling. These findings reveal how Wnt signals direct the asymmetric localization of β-catenin during polarized cell division.

Keywords

Footnotes

  • Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.

  • Article and publication are at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.1323705.

  • ↵3 Corresponding author. E-MAIL Craig.Mello{at}umassmed.edu; FAX (508) 856-2950.

    • Accepted June 9, 2005.
    • Received April 14, 2005.
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  1. doi: 10.1101/gad.1323705 Genes & Dev. 19: 1749-1754 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

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