1. |
- Kreuger, Johan, et al.
(author)
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Opposing activities of Dally-like glypican at high and low levels of Wingless morphogen activity.
- 2004
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In: Developmental Cell. - : Elsevier BV. - 1534-5807 .- 1878-1551. ; 7:4, s. 503-512
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The glypican family of heparan sulfate proteoglycans has been implicated in formation of morphogen gradients. Here, we examine the role of the glypican Dally-like protein (Dlp) in shaping the Wingless gradient in the Drosophila wing disc. Surprisingly, we find that Dlp has opposite effects at high and low levels of Wingless. Dlp promotes low-level Wingless activity but reduces high-level Wingless activity. We present evidence that the Wg antagonist Notum acts to induce cleavage of the Dlp glypican at the level of its GPI anchor, which leads to shedding of Dlp. Thus, spatially regulated modification of Dlp by Notum employs the ligand binding activity of Dlp to promote or inhibit signaling in a context-dependent manner. Notum-induced shedding of Dlp could convert Dlp from a membrane-tethered coreceptor to a secreted antagonist.
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2. |
- Reischauer, Sven, et al.
(author)
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Cloche is a bHLH-PAS transcription factor that drives haemato-vascular specification
- 2016
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In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 535:7611, s. 294-298
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Vascular and haematopoietic cells organize into specialized tissues during early embryogenesis to supply essential nutrients to all organs and thus play critical roles in development and disease. At the top of the haemato-vascular specification cascade lies cloche, a gene that when mutated in zebrafish leads to the striking phenotype of loss of most endothelial and haematopoietic cells(1-4) and a significant increase in cardiomyocyte numbers(5). Although this mutant has been analysed extensively to investigate mesoderm diversification and differentiation(1-7) and continues to be broadly used as a unique avascular model, the isolation of the cloche gene has been challenging due to its telomeric location. Here we used a deletion allele of cloche to identify several new cloche candidate genes within this genomic region, and systematically genome-edited each candidate. Through this comprehensive interrogation, we succeeded in isolating the cloche gene and discovered that it encodes a PAS-domain-containing bHLH transcription factor, and that it is expressed in a highly specific spatiotemporal pattern starting during late gastrulation. Gain-of-function experiments show that it can potently induce endothelial gene expression. Epistasis experiments reveal that it functions upstream of etv2 and tal1, the earliest expressed endothelial and haematopoietic transcription factor genes identified to date. A mammalian cloche orthologue can also rescue blood vessel formation in zebrafish cloche mutants, indicating a highly conserved role in vertebrate vasculogenesis and haematopoiesis. The identification of this master regulator of endothelial and haematopoietic fate enhances our understanding of early mesoderm diversification and may lead to improved protocols for the generation of endothelial and haematopoietic cells in vivo and in vitro.
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