Combinatorial Wnt signaling landscape during brachiopod anteroposterior patterning.

Autor: Vellutini BC; Michael Sars Centre, University of Bergen, Thormøhlensgate 55, 5008, Bergen, Norway. vellutini@mpi-cbg.de.; Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Pfotenhauerstraße 108, 01307, Dresden, Germany. vellutini@mpi-cbg.de., Martín-Durán JM; Michael Sars Centre, University of Bergen, Thormøhlensgate 55, 5008, Bergen, Norway.; School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, Fogg Building, London, E1 4NS, UK., Børve A; Michael Sars Centre, University of Bergen, Thormøhlensgate 55, 5008, Bergen, Norway.; Department of Biological Sciences, Molecular Biology, University of Bergen, Thormøhlensgate 55, 5008, Bergen, Norway., Hejnol A; Michael Sars Centre, University of Bergen, Thormøhlensgate 55, 5008, Bergen, Norway. andreas.hejnol@uib.no.; Department of Biological Sciences, Molecular Biology, University of Bergen, Thormøhlensgate 55, 5008, Bergen, Norway. andreas.hejnol@uib.no.; Institute of Zoology and Evolutionary Research, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Erbertstraße 1, 07743, Jena, Germany. andreas.hejnol@uib.no.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: BMC biology [BMC Biol] 2024 Sep 19; Vol. 22 (1), pp. 212. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Sep 19.
DOI: 10.1186/s12915-024-01988-w
Abstrakt: Background: Wnt signaling pathways play crucial roles in animal development. They establish embryonic axes, specify cell fates, and regulate tissue morphogenesis from the early embryo to organogenesis. It is becoming increasingly recognized that these distinct developmental outcomes depend upon dynamic interactions between multiple ligands, receptors, antagonists, and other pathway modulators, consolidating the view that a combinatorial "code" controls the output of Wnt signaling. However, due to the lack of comprehensive analyses of Wnt components in several animal groups, it remains unclear if specific combinations always give rise to specific outcomes, and if these combinatorial patterns are conserved throughout evolution.
Results: In this work, we investigate the combinatorial expression of Wnt signaling components during the axial patterning of the brachiopod Terebratalia transversa. We find that T. transversa has a conserved repertoire of ligands, receptors, and antagonists. These genes are expressed throughout embryogenesis but undergo significant upregulation during axial elongation. At this stage, Frizzled domains occupy broad regions across the body while Wnt domains are narrower and distributed in partially overlapping patches; antagonists are mostly restricted to the anterior end. Based on their combinatorial expression, we identify a series of unique transcriptional subregions along the anteroposterior axis that coincide with the different morphological subdivisions of the brachiopod larval body. When comparing these data across the animal phylogeny, we find that the expression of Frizzled genes is relatively conserved, whereas the expression of Wnt genes is more variable.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that the differential activation of Wnt signaling pathways may play a role in regionalizing the anteroposterior axis of brachiopod larvae. More generally, our analyses suggest that changes in the receptor context of Wnt ligands may act as a mechanism for the evolution and diversification of the metazoan body axis.
(© 2024. The Author(s).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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