Hubrecht Institute, KNAW and University Medical Centre Utrecht, 3584CT Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 2012 Apr 1;4(4):a007989. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a007989.
The Wnt signaling pathway was originally uncovered as one of the prototype developmental signaling cascades in invertebrates as well as in vertebrates. The first indication that Wnt signaling also plays a role in the adult animal came from the study of the intestine of Tcf-4 (Tcf7L2) knockout mice. The gastrointestinal epithelium continuously self-renews over the lifetime of an organism and is, in fact, the most rapidly self-renewing tissue of the mammalian body. Recent studies indicate that Wnt signaling plays a central role in the biology of gastrointestinal stem cells. Furthermore, mutational activation of the Wnt cascade is the principle cause of colon cancer.
Wnt 信号通路最初是在无脊椎动物和脊椎动物中作为原型发育信号级联之一被发现的。Wnt 信号在成年动物中也发挥作用的第一个迹象来自 Tcf-4（Tcf7L2）敲除小鼠的肠道研究。胃肠道上皮细胞在生物体的一生中不断自我更新，实际上是哺乳动物身体中自我更新最快的组织。最近的研究表明，Wnt 信号在胃肠道干细胞生物学中发挥着核心作用。此外，Wnt 级联的突变激活是结肠癌的主要原因。
