Abstract
Wnt/β-catenin signaling is an important cell-to-cell signaling mechanism that
controls gene expression during embryonic development and is critically
implicated in human diseases. Developmental, cellular, and transcriptional
responses to Wnt signaling are remarkably context-specific in different
biological processes. While nuclear localization of β-catenin is the key to
activation of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway and target gene expression, the
molecular mechanisms of how the same Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway
induces specific responses remain undetermined. Recent advances in highthroughput sequencing technologies and the availability of genome
information for Xenopus tropicalis have enabled us to uncover a genome-wide
view of Wnt/β-catenin signaling in early vertebrate embryos, which challenges
previous concepts about molecular mechanisms of Wnt target gene regulation.
In this review, we summarize our experimental approaches, introduce the
technologies we employed and focus on recent findings about Wnt target
gene regulation from Xenopus research. We will also discuss potential
functions of widespread β-catenin binding in the genome that we discovered
in this species.
controls gene expression during embryonic development and is critically
implicated in human diseases. Developmental, cellular, and transcriptional
responses to Wnt signaling are remarkably context-specific in different
biological processes. While nuclear localization of β-catenin is the key to
activation of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway and target gene expression, the
molecular mechanisms of how the same Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway
induces specific responses remain undetermined. Recent advances in highthroughput sequencing technologies and the availability of genome
information for Xenopus tropicalis have enabled us to uncover a genome-wide
view of Wnt/β-catenin signaling in early vertebrate embryos, which challenges
previous concepts about molecular mechanisms of Wnt target gene regulation.
In this review, we summarize our experimental approaches, introduce the
technologies we employed and focus on recent findings about Wnt target
gene regulation from Xenopus research. We will also discuss potential
functions of widespread β-catenin binding in the genome that we discovered
in this species.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e22991 |
| Journal | Genesis |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue number | 1-2 |
| Early online date | 29 Jan 2017 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jan 2017 |
Bibliographical note
We would like to thank Ken Cho, Ira Blitz, Kris Vleminckx and Aaron Zorn fordiscussion and Adam Lynch for comments on the manuscript. The research of
the authors is supported by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences
Research Council (BB/M001695/1).
Keywords
- Wnt signaling
- β-Catenin
- Xenopus
- gastrula
- ChIP-seq
- RNA-seq
- Amphibian
- Organism, early development
- Process, signalling
- Process, transcription
- Process, mesoderm
- Tissue
Access to Document
- Genome-wide analysis of canonical Wnt target gene regulation in Xenopus tropicalis challenges b-catenin paradigm
C 2017 The Authors genesis Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/