IMR Press / FBL / Volume 9 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.2741/1306

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Article

Noncanonical Wnt signaling pathways in C. elegans converge on POP-1/TCF and control cell polarity

Show Less
1 Program in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2004, 9(2), 1530–1539; https://doi.org/10.2741/1306
Published: 1 May 2004
Abstract

In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a canonical Wnt signaling pathway controls a cell migration whereas noncanonical Wnt pathways control the polarities of individual cells. Despite the differences in the identities and interactions among canonical and noncanonical Wnt pathway components, as well as the processes they regulate, almost all C. elegans Wnt pathways involve the sole Tcf homolog, POP-1. Intriguingly, POP-1 is asymmetrically distributed between the daughters of an asymmetric cell division, with the anterior sister cell usually having a higher level of nuclear POP-1 than its posterior sister. At some divisions, asymmetric distribution of POP-1 is controlled by noncanonical Wnt signaling, but at others the asymmetry is generated independently. Recent experiments suggest that despite this elaborate anterior-posterior POP-1 asymmetry, the quantity of POP-1 protein may have less to do with the subsequent determination of fate than does the quality of the POP-1 protein in the cell. In this review, we will embark on a quest to understand Quality (1), at least from the standpoint of the effect POP/Tcf quality has on the control of cell polarity in C. elegans.

Keywords
Noncanonical Wnt signals
C. elegans
Cell polarity
POP-1
Tcf
Review
Share
Back to top