Institute for Neural Information Processing, Ulm University, D-89081 Ulm, Germany.
J Cell Biol. 2011 May 2;193(3):431-3. doi: 10.1083/jcb.201103167.
Wnt proteins can activate different branches of the Wnt signaling pathway, raising the question of specificity. In this issue, Nalesso et al. (2011. J. Cell Biol. doi:10.1083/jcb.201011051) provide an answer to this conundrum by showing that different concentrations of Wnt ligands can elicit different intracellular responses. These findings not only provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying Wnt signaling, but also indicate how Wnt gradients might contribute to tissue patterning during embryogenesis.
Wnt 蛋白可以激活 Wnt 信号通路的不同分支，这就引发了一个关于特异性的问题。在本期中，Nalesso 等人（2011. J. Cell Biol. doi:10.1083/jcb.201011051）通过显示不同浓度的 Wnt 配体可以引发不同的细胞内反应，为这个难题提供了答案。这些发现不仅为 Wnt 信号转导的分子机制提供了新的见解，还表明了 Wnt 浓度梯度如何在胚胎发生过程中有助于组织模式形成。
