Wnt signaling drives WRM-1/β-catenin asymmetries in early C. elegans embryos
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.
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Footnotes
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Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.
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Article and publication are at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.1323705.
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↵3 Corresponding author. E-MAIL Craig.Mello{at}umassmed.edu; FAX (508) 856-2950.
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- Accepted June 9, 2005.
- Received April 14, 2005.
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press